It would have been very sad if the author had managed to make me feel at all connected with the characters. But there was something superficial about his style that made it hard to take the story seriously. It was supposed to be in honor of the heroic pilots who pioneered the air mail and passenger system, but it just seemed dumb that the pilots kept risking their lives to get the mail to its destination a few hours earlier than it would have gotten there if they'd waited for decent weather.