The Vanishing of Class 3B by Jackie Kabler

There used to be a nightmare I had every summer term, back in the days when I was teaching. It was always the same: I had lost my class. So this book really called out to my past trauma.

In the Cotswolds, a busload of young children, along with four members of staff, don't return following a school trip. There was no contact with anyone, no record of an accident or breakdown, nor any cctv indicating what may of happened. A total vanishing of class 3B. The police are called in to envisage but they have very little to work on. The remaining staff at the school, including the head teacher as well as the distraught parents, are left to stew over where the children are. 

Told from the perspective of several characters, there is a spread of viewpoints as they each question themselves and each other. There are secrets but whether these are relevant to the disappearance is to be revealed. The build up to anything at all significant is slow, as I imagine it would be in real life and there is a sense of dragging and repetition as the parents begin to fall apart at the seams.

Tension and suspicion grow as the story races towards its climax. A story about trust, family, parenthood, revenge and accountability and the nightmare all parents fear.

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Published by One More Chapter on 11 May 2023.
Advance review copy supplied by the publisher.

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