Ransom (reprinted under the title Five Were Missing)[1] is a 1966 thriller novel by Lois Duncan.

[2][3] Its plot follows a group of children who are kidnapped and held hostage on a school bus.

It marked Duncan's first foray into the suspense and thriller genre, and was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award.

[4] Marianne Paget, Bruce Kirtland, Glenn Kirtland, Jesse French, and Dexter Barton, students in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are abducted on their school bus by a gang of kidnappers.

The criminals demand $15,000 ransoms for each child, which their respective parents scramble to produce.