Deadlock
Before Reading
BEFORE READING ACTIVITIES (PAGE 92)
ACTIVITY 1 BEFORE READING
deadlock means a complete failure to reach agreement
or solve an argument
dead means not alive
a lock (on a river or canal) is an area of water closed
off by gates at each end so that the water level can
be raised or lowered
If students have thought about the word ‘lock’,
they will probably be able to guess that the answer
is number 2, ships. When they read the story
introduction, this will confirm their guess.
ACTIVITY 2 BEFORE READING
1 Yes 2 No 3 Yes 4 Yes 5 No
ACTIVITY 3 BEFORE READING
Do not give the answers, but encourage students
to speculate and to make guesses. Students will be
able to check their guesses as they read the story. If
they know about the conventions of crime thrillers,
they will probably guess No to number 1 and Yes to
number 3. In fact the only ‘yes’ answer is number 3.
While Reading
CHAPTERS 1–3 WHILE READING
1 Because she didn’t believe it was an accident.
2 That people were saying that Boom Boom was
in trouble at Eudora Grain, that he stole some
papers and threw himself under the ship so that he
wouldn’t be arrested.
3 She was looking for some personal letters that she
wrote to Boom Boom.
4 Clayton Phillips was Boom Boom’s boss. Niels
Grafalk was the owner of the Grafalk Steamship
Line, which owned the Bertha Krupnik, the ship
that Boom Boom fell under. Martin Bledsoe was
the owner of the Pole Star Line, which owned the
Lucella Wieser, another ship in port at the time of
Boom Boom’s death. Mike Sheridan was the chief
engineer on the Lucella Wieser.
5 Someone put water in the Lucella’s holds so she
couldn’t take on a cargo of grain.
6 Because Bledsoe used to work for Grafalk, but then
he left and set up his own business in competition.
7 The dead body of the watchman.
OXFORD BOOKWORMS LIBRARY STAGE 5
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STAGE 5
CHAPTERS 4–6 WHILE READING
1 According to Janet, Mr Phillips was glad that Boom
ACTIVITIES ANSWERS
Boom was leaving soon.
2 Bobby Mallory didn’t like Vic to get involved with
police work.
3 Bledsoe told Vic that shipping contracts were
regularly cancelled if another company offered a
better price or earlier delivery.
4 The brakes on Vic’s car were damaged and so was
the steering.
5 Howard Mattingly wasn’t a good hockey player and
Boom Boom never liked him.
6 Niels Grafalk’s father refused to give Bledsoe
another chance.
BEFORE READING CHAPTERS 7–10
1 Clayton Phillips
2 Janet
3 Bobby Mallory
4 Niels Grafalk
5 Murray Ryerson
6 Paige Carrington
7 Martin Bledsoe
8 Pierre Bouchard and Howard Mattingly
Encourage discussion of the characters’
involvement. It is unlikely that Janet, Bobby
Mallory, Murray Ryerson or Pierre Bouchard were
involved in Boom Boom’s death, but there could be
question marks over any of the others at this point.
CHAPTERS 7–10 WHILE READING
1 Why . . .? Because she wanted to find out if Grafalk’s
story about Bledsoe was true and whether the captain
or the chief engineer had damaged her car.
2 What . . .? She saw someone swimming away from
the side of the ship.
3 How . . .? He set off a radio signal.
4 Why . . .? Because the man with red hair came along
and told the pilot that Bledsoe wanted him to fly
him to Chicago.
5 What . . .? Invoices to compare with the shipping
contracts.
6 What . . .? An invoice from the Grafalk Steamship
Company to Eudora Grain and a piece of paper listing
six dates when Pole Star had lost contracts to Grafalk.
© Oxford University Press
7 What . . .? A price difference of two cents a bushel
on three million bushels.
8 Who . . .? Clayton Phillips.
BEFORE READING CHAPTERS 11–13
Open answers. Students may decide at this point
that they are more suspicious of Niels Grafalk than
Martin Bledsoe.
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 CHAPTERS 11–13 WHILE READING
1 Because they were sisters.
2 Because she was only interested in clothes, not in
helping the poor.
3 Because he wanted Phillips to give him more
shipping contracts.
ACTIVITIES ANSWERS
4 Because she was Grafalk’s mistress.
5 Because she thought the police might find Phillips’s
blood on it.
6 Because she wanted the police to know that she had
been on Grafalk’s boat.
7 Because she knew Grafalk wanted to kill her.
8 Open answer. Perhaps because he knew that Vic had
won, and he respected her.
BEFORE READING CHAPTER 14
Encourage students to speculate and to make
guesses, but do not tell them the answers. They
will find out as they read that the ‘yes’ answer is
number 3, and that we don’t know the answer to
number 5: perhaps Martin Bledsoe.
After Reading
ACTIVITY 1 AFTER READING
• The watchman at Boom Boom’s apartment had his
neck broken by Howard Mattingly.
• Howard Mattingly was hit by a car driven by
Clayton Phillips.
• Clayton Phillips was shot in the head by Niels Grafalk.
• Niels Grafalk died when his boat exploded because
V. I. Warshawski started a fire.
ACTIVITY 2 AFTER READING
Open answers. Students will probably feel that
although Paige and Jeannine did not commit a
crime, they had some responsibility for Boom
Boom’s death. They could argue that all the deaths
resulted from Jeannine’s greed, which drove her
husband to crime; or they could insist that all the
characters were ultimately responsible for their own
actions.
ACTIVITY 3 AFTER READING
Vic decided to hide as a stowaway on the Lucella
because she was afraid that Captain Bemis would not
want her on board his ship. She knew that she would
be able to leave the Lucella when the ship stopped at
the lock at Sault Ste Marie. After the cargo of grain
had been loaded into the holds and the Lucella was
© Oxford University Press
ready to sail, Vic climbed up the ladder to the deck
and waited until the Lucella had pulled away from the
wharf and was a couple of kilometres from land. Then
she went up to the bridge to talk to Bledsoe.
ACTIVITY 4 AFTER READING
Open answers.
OXFORD BOOKWORMS LIBRARY STAGE 5
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ACTIVITY 5 AFTER READING
Possible answers:
AJAX PRESIDENT: I’m afraid your husband may be
responsible for the explosion that destroyed the
Lucella Wieser.
MRS GRAFALK: But why would he do that?
AJAX PRESIDENT: To stop big ships from getting
through the locks to the upper lakes.
MRS GRAFALK: But why did he want to do that?
AJAX PRESIDENT: Because the big ships were taking
business from him.
MRS GRAFALK: Couldn’t he build bigger ships of his
own?
AJAX PRESIDENT: No. Because the Grafalk Steamship
Line was losing money.
MRS GRAFALK: So how did he keep Grafalk Steamship
running?
AJAX PRESIDENT: By using the profits from his railway
and his computer company.
MRS GRAFALK: How did you find out about all this?
AJAX PRESIDENT: Ms Warshawski came to see Mr
Ferrant at Ajax and they checked the files.
ACTIVITY 6 AFTER READING
12+4 11+1 5+2+7 9+6+13 8+3+10
Clayton Phillips was cheating his bosses at Eudora
Grain because his wife wanted to live in a wealthy
part of Chicago. He put one price in the shipping
contracts for Eudora Grain but he charged a higher
price on the invoices. He made thousands of dollars
for himself, but Boom Boom discovered the truth so
Phillips killed him. When Vic also discovered what was
going on, Phillips panicked and he went to Grafalk
for help. He threatened to tell the police that Grafalk
was responsible for blowing up the Lucella, so Grafalk
killed him.
ACTIVITY 7 AFTER READING
Open answers.
ACTIVITY 8 AFTER READING
If students need prompting, they could look at the
list of titles in the Oxford Bookworms Library,
which includes, for example:
Dead Man’s Island
White Death
Death of an Englishman
The Dead of Jericho
Deadheads – this is also a play on words (referring
to cutting dead flowers, particularly roses)
ACTIVITY 9 AFTER READING
Open answers. This could be developed as a
project, where students collect information in
order to write a profile of either a private eye or
a police detective. They could use other graded
readers, novels in their own language, films or TV
programmes etc.
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