It’s my stop today on the blog tour for The Vanishing of Class 3B by Jackie Kabler. Many thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for the tour invite.
Title: The Vanishing of Class 3B
Author: Jackie Kabler
Published on: 11 May 2023
Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
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?
Oh-Em-Gee!! Engrossing. Mind Numbing. Spine Chilling. Captivating. Twisted. Riveting. Page Turner. I can go on and on and on… Mind blown! Wow! This book was so, so, so good!
The story begins with ten children and four teaching staff waiting to start their field trip. It’s a new bus but there’s something wrong with it – it won’t start. Thank God for Arnie, the local cab driver who has a minibus. It’s a last-minute switch but better than canceling the trip, right?
They are around an hour late in leaving school so it is pretty obvious that they will be back a bit late. But it’s past 6 in the evening and the bus is nowhere to be seen. The headmistress tries to contact the teaching staff but none of them answer her calls. Local police are intimated, Detective Superintendent Sadie Stewart and Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Sharma take over the case.
Soon, it becomes clear that this might be a case of kidnapping. A carefully planned plot. The new bus had to have problems on the day of the trip. It was fitted with a tracker. The bus in which the kids left is an old model, no GPS. Days pass by and the parents are worried. Then, there’s a development – and the parents fear that the kidnappers are capable of violence.
It was so sad that the kids had to face a traumatic situation for no fault of theirs. It so happened that their parents had made a couple of bad decisions and the kids ended up facing the brunt of it. Also, from the beginning, we readers are given a picture of the parents, their backgrounds, and… their secrets.
As the story proceeds, some of the parents are hysterical, some worry about petty things like fixing the creaking stairs… and suddenly they realize it doesn’t matter until their kid is back home.
The story takes an interesting turn when a local dogwalker (it’s always the dogwalkers!) finds something related to the missing school bus. Then, another development – this time, it’s from the kidnappers.
I was hooked on to the story and couldn’t put it down until the end. Multiple PoVs made the story more engrossing. Twists and turns are plenty and sure to keep one guessing till the end. The secrets some of these parents have – gosh! I was like, WHY????
I hope this book gets picked up for a movie or TV series soon. It’s THAT good! If you are looking for an edge-of-your-seat thriller, you HAVE to give The Vanishing of Class 3B by Jackie Kabler a try.
There’s a giveaway for this tour. You can win a signed copy of The Vanishing of Class 3B by Jackie Kabler. Open to UK only. To participate in the giveaway, click here.
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