Like previous Thatcher stories, Something in the Air deals with a single financial enterprise—in this case, a nofrills commuter airline. While clearly accepting the capitalist system with all its implications, the novel raises questions about the relationship of labor and management that go beyond the treatment of this topic in Lathen's earlier books. Sparrow Flyways has an innovative profit sharing system and horizontal management, both of which become inconvenient for its founder during a period of proposed expansion.

He then seeks to replace the system with a more conventional top-down management scheme. In the ensuing power struggle no faction is free of self-interest. The potential role of women also comes in for a greater share of attention than before, since one of the founding partners of Sparrow and the fiery leader of the workers' group are both female. By the end of the novel...