When Chicago Black Hawks hockey legend Boom Boom Warshawski drowns in Lake Michigan, his private-eye cousin, the intrepid V.I. Warshawski, questions the accidental death report and rumors of suicide. Armed with a bottle of Black Label and a Smith Wesson, V.I. follows a trail of violence and corruption to the center of the Windy City's powerful shipping industry. Dodging attempts on her life with characteristic grit and humor, V.I. wends her way through a maze of grain elevators and thousand-ton freighters, ruthless businessmen, and gorgeous ballerinas, to ferret out Boom Boom's killers before they take her out of the picture – permanently.