Flight of Dreams is a fiercely intimate portrait of the ninety-seven people on board the last, doomed flight of the Hindenburg. Among them are a frightened stewardess who is not what she seems; the steadfast navigator determined to win her heart; a naive cabin boy eager to earn a permanent spot on the world’s largest airship; an impetuous journalist who has been blacklisted in her native Germany; and an enigmatic American businessman with a score to settle. Behind them is the gathering storm in Europe and before them is looming disaster. But for the moment they float over the Atlantic, unaware of the inexorable, tragic fate that awaits them.

From the ground, the Hindenburg must have been an astonishing sight — over 800 feet long, 135 feet wide, nearly 13 stories high. On its tail fins, huge black swastikas reminded the world that Nazi genius had created it. Within its rigid metal frame hung huge fabric bladders of combustible hydrogen, sufficiently capable of lifting its gargantuan mass into the sky. As Ariel Lawhon vividly writes, they looked like the “giant inflated lungs” of a “sentient beast.” There was also, ominously, a smoking room on one of the passenger decks, along with a lounge, a dining room, bar and sleeping quarters, all located inside the dirigible.

Like the 1975 movie The Hindenburg, Flight of Dreams makes use of the actual passengers on that last flight to populate its story. And like the film, the novel beautifully exploits the unique, excruciating kind of suspense in which the poor horrified reader knows from the start exactly what’s going to happen. Well, maybe not exactly.

Few people today believe the explosion of the Hindenburg as it attempted to dock was the result of sabotage; an electrostatic spark was the likely culprit. But as our own era makes only too clear, it’s always possible to prefer conspiracy to fact. Almost at once, rumors began to spread: that a bomb had been detonated, that someone had fired a pistol, that an anti-Nazi agent had brought down Hitler’s magnificent symbol of prestige. A novelist, of course, has no choice but to torment us with every possibility.

Brilliantly exploring one of the most enduring mysteries of the twentieth century, Flight of Dreams is that rare novel that keeps you guessing till the last page. The story ends as it should. Both reader and airship pause for one terrible moment as the sky turns suddenly to “liquid gold” and the titanic Hindenburg “shatters into ocher and flame.”

I love reading historical fiction and thought this was a great read. It made this small piece of history come alive. I appreciated the use of actual passengers and their histories.

The Yankton Community Library owns the book and audio book. You can also find The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by the same author at the library.