Summary

Chapter 9 is titled “If This is to be a Derby.” The better-known female fliers in America – Elder, Nichols, Thaden, and Earhart – all stayed away from Cliff Henderson’s Los Angeles race. Nichols was not going to be allowed to fly by the company she was working for; Earhart had had an accident and realized her skills were too rusty; and Thaden was recovering from the accident that had killed her passenger. But in the fall of 2018, Thaden had recovered enough from her own injuries to claim the women’s flying records in altitude, endurance, and speed. She then went to rejoin her husband, who had sold his airplane manufacturing company and was working for the buyer in Pittsburgh.

Henderson, meanwhile, was struggling to recover from the death of his beloved wife and with the demands of socialite Elizabeth McQueen, who was pressuring...