["Fate is the Hunter"] is a documentary about the pre-war days of commercial flying, first in the United States and, after, during the war, in South America and all over the world. It is an evocation from the point of view of the men in the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot. They are shown as technicians watching their instruments and then, suddenly, as human beings surprised by peril—all four engines give out; the aircraft is lost; it runs into violent storm; it is down to a few minutes petrol; it escapes collision by 50 feet; it is pulled down by ice and so on. These jabs of Fate are unpredictable and are opposed by the pilots' luck, their individual character, their hard apprenticeship and their technical intelligence, the virtù of the profession.

Although parts of the book are written in the attitudinising prose of posh journalism that hectors...