How can an entire class just disappear?

Synopsis

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?

My review

The children of class 3B in a primary school in the Cotswolds are looking forward to their trip. After the day is over, the parents are eagerly waiting for the bus the return. But no bus returns…
The more time passes, the more realization dawns that something has happened. No matter how hard everyone is trying to find a trace of the bus with its children and teachers, no sign of them can be found. How can a bus just disappear into thin air?
A race against the clock begins, as it becomes clear that if the parents don’t come up with the ransom money, a dark secret will come out. And with famous parents on the scene, whose secret exactly? 

I am not a parent myself, so I can only try to imagine the terror when you realize that your child, whom you trusted in the capable hands of teachers, just disappeared.
So while reading, I kept having the chills because everything happening in this book is just terrifying. And that is all thanks to this author who kept me sitting at the edge of my seat! 

What I liked about this story, is that we see many different points of view. Not only we see how the police are trying to find any clues, but we also see the desperation of the parents, and how each couple or even each parents handles it differently.
And disturbingly, we also get to learn that several parents are having secrets… so to which secret is the abductor talking about??? 

I was rather disappointed in some of the parents, even a little bit disgusted… It’s obvious that some of them are very selfish, not appreciating what they have and just thinking about themselves. I found it terrible to see how their behaviour, past or present, could be the reason that innocent children were just taken. 

The more I dived into the story, the more I started to have my own suspects of the crime. But while the culprits were not that difficult to find, the reason of their actions were. I was very hard trying to find the common thread between it all, but only to fail at it, as I was surprised by all the revelations, one more surprising than another! 

Perhaps it isn’t a nice thing to say, but with this book, my faith in humankind did take a small downfall. Yes of course, this is fiction, none of it real.
Yet some aspects could totally happen in real life, to some extent. Perhaps in that aspect I am too trustworthy, gullible? Because I always believe that people are good, kind, yet this story shows us the opposite. 

Throughout the biggest part of my reading sessions, I found the pace of all the events rather slow. But I don’t mean this in a bad way, as the slowness only added fuel to the agony, despair and mystery.
However, towards the end the pace went up a few notches, aligning perfectly with what happens in the story itself. Yet to me personally, it felt a bit too quick and several storylines seemed to be closed off too easily, compared to the big scheme of it all. 

I found this a nail-biting thriller (and I am a fervent biter myself!). The author made sure that her readers become even more distrusting towards people, as it would appear that everyone has secrets they keep…
This story is a real nightmare for every parent, and even hose without children find themselves in terror.
A real page – turner that makes you read it quickly while having your fingers crossed for a positive outcome…