1965; Book Club Edition; M.S. Mill Co. publishers, New York; hardbound in blue boards with black lettering on spine; very good condition with unmarked pages and no age foxing; dust jacket good with minor edge wear.
 
Description -
Airs Above the Ground is a novel by Mary Stewart, first published in 1965. The title derives from Classical dressage, in particular, the graceful Airs Above the Ground, the haute ecole movements for which special breeds of horses, in particular Lippizans, are highly trained. These trained moves were once used by the horse to aid mounted soldiers in battle.
 
Plot -
Vanessa March is married to Lewis, who works for the Sales Department of Pan-European Chemicals.
Having tea with her mother's schoolfriend Carmel Lacy at Harrods, she learns that Lewis, whom she believes to be in Stockholm on business, appears in a newsreel story about a circus fire in Austria. Carmel, assuming Vanessa will be joining Lewis in Austria, asks her to accompany her seventeen-year-old son Timothy, who wants to visit his divorced father in Vienna.
 
Seeing the newsreel for herself, Vanessa sees Lewis in Austria — with his arm around a blonde girl. When she receives a message from Lewis postmarked Stockholm, Vanessa immediately agrees to travel to Austria, unaware that by doing so she is endangering her husband and herself.
 
The story is set against a backdrop of circus life, stolen goods, international smuggling, and an old mystery involving the disappearance of a famed Lipizzaner stallion and his groom.