Vanished

This book kept me guessing right up to the end. The characters are so real. These are kids I would want to know.

Twelve-year-old Jerri McKane is distraught to hear her roommate and several other girls from Landmark School for Girls are missing after they didn't return from a school field trip. What is more startling is the purple and yellow school van was spotted traveling along a two-lane road bordering a lake, but was not seen coming out the other end. What happened to the bus? Did it careen on black ice or was there foul play? Amateur sleuth Jerri McKane will stop at nothing to find out what happened to the bus, even if it means risking her own life. I was riveted to the edge of my seat wondering what happened to that bus. The author's carefully laid red herring left me totally clueless. I couldn't figure out what happened and I didn't know who to trust. The characterization of the cantankerous head mistress, the overzealous T.V. reporter, and the blue-haired, nose-ringed news camera woman made the story come to life. Advanced readers too young to handle the likely reasons the children disappeared: possible accidental death, possible child abduction, and possible murder should not read this story just yet. I wouldn't want the little ones to suffer from bad dreams. But middle school-aged children through adults will enjoy Fading Tracks as Jerri learns to "trust God when the world doesn't seem to make sense."