Book Review - The Vanishing of Class of 3B by Jackie Kabler

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Title: The Vanishing of Class 3B

Author: Jackie Kabler

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source:Netgalley

Publisher: One More Chapter

Publication Date: 11th May 2023

Rating: 5 Stars

One spring morning, a bus full of children and their teachers from a Cotswolds primary school head off on a much-anticipated day trip.

But as night falls and the well-heeled parents – one or two of them famous, as well as wealthy – wait at the school to collect their weary offspring, it soon becomes clear that something has gone very wrong.

The children and their teachers simply do not come back.

What’s happened doesn’t seem possible.

How can an entire class of children simply vanish?

It must be a parent or teacher's worst nightmare, going off on a school outing and not returning home.  But just how can a school bus of 10 children and 4 teachers just disappear without a trace?

Surely it has to be impossible, and the reasons behind it are pretty unguessable. 

It is an incredibly well crafted, well plotted, and very clever premise to this story, that had me under its spell. I was reading into the early hours until my eyes couldn't stay open any more and then had a disturbed night's sleep a result. 

It is also clear quite early on that various parents are hiding things, but as a reader I only got to work out some of the secrets, a few beats before the characters, they seemed that well concealed. 

I was open mouthed for a lot of the time I was reading this, in part due to the parents, which although I felt sorry for them all, I also didn't seem to like most of them, baffled as to how on earth the police were ever going to figure this case out, while in fear that pure innocent children may be harmed. 

It was such a fiendishly clever, well thought out plan from the villains of the piece, that I was in awe of them, 

Another truly spectacular story from Jackie Kabler. 

Thank you to One More Chapter and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.