A psychiatrist is called in by the police to investigate a horrific massacre in which all the adult residents of an exclusive Home Counties housing estate were brutally murdered. The children are missing. Who took them? The narrator is the familiar Ballard figure, a doctor calmly mulling over shocking events. Initially we are presented with several possible explanations, some absurd. Dr Greville's tone never changes. Even the wackiest speculation is examined with chilling attention to detail he may almost be compiling a shopping list. The truth eventually dawns, that these spoilt, adored children have rebelled against "the tyranny of love and care". Ballard, even at his most bizarre, remains the sanest of social moralists. Short and sharp, this cautionary morality play, first published in 1988, explores his major theme, that of a privileged, indulged society killing itself through excess.
