This novel is set in 1928, in the days of the US Air Mail being flown in rickety old biplanes. The titular aviator has been tasked with flying a passenger as well as the mail: an 11-year-old girl named Heather. Naturally, the plane crashes, and both Heather and the aviator have to fight for survival.

The airplane stuff in this book was fantastic. I love reading about flights in older airplanes. Where this book went really sour for me was the rest of the story. The aviator was horribly disfigured in a plane crash that claimed the life of the student pilot he was instructing. He’s been unable to form meaningful relationships, until now. He and Heather form an emotional bond that has some of the language of romantic relationships. Nothing physical happens, but I spent most of the book cringing because some of the conversations came across as really creepy to me. I can’t say I’d recommend this particular Gann book, but I would certainly read other books of his that didn’t have this type of awkward plot element. ( )

In the mid-1930s, a disfigured mail pilot and his sole passenger, an eleven-year-old girl, crash and, resigned to freezing to death, pass the time reading letters from the mail bag and discovering a love for one another

http://pergelator.blogspot.com/2008/06/books-aviator.html ( )