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Kristy has a lot of blessings. She loves her big and complicated family, she is looking forward to the upcoming awards night at her junior high, and she enjoys coaching her softball team, Kristy's Krushers. After a practice session against her rival, Bart and his Bashers, Kristy and Bart walk home together. Jake, one of the pitchers on her team, heads home on his own because his mom gave him permission to walk by himself. Kristy wonders if she should insist on following him home, but decides not to pursue the matter, because she has a small crush on Bart and is excited to spend some time with him.

Later that night, Jake's mom calls Kristy's house. She is looking for Jake, who still isn't home. No one is concerned at first, but as the hours pass, the matter becomes more serious. Jake's mother calls the police. Kristy and the other babysitters do all they can to help locate the boy. Yet the night passes, and Jake never returns home. Kristy is beside herself with worry. She feels responsible for not walking him home after practice, even if he did have permission. With the help of her friends, she organizes searches throughout the city, and refuses to give up even as her hope fades. Finally, three days after Jake disappears, Kristy and her group of searchers take Matt Braddock's suggestion and search a construction site, and find the lost boy, trapped in an unfinished basement.

The mysteries follow a similar format as the main series. The book is told from the perspective of one of the girls, with occasional interjections when a different babysitter writes an entry for the records notebook. The mystery has less of these babysitting side episodes, though, as the book focuses on the mystery. In this entry in the series, we have the main plot of Jake missing, and a side plot involving Mary Anne and her struggles with her home ec class. Martin does a good job showing that we still have to deal with life's smaller problems even when huge issues are occupying our attention. Other long running narratives, like Kristy's relationship with Bart, are further developed. The emphasis is the mystery, though. I enjoyed the story but wasn't super excited about it, maybe because I had no fears that the author would let anything very serious happen to Jake in this story meant for younger readers. This book is an enjoyable read, very much in the tone of the series and with the characters I have come to care about, even if it did not stand out to me as one of the better entries in the series. ( )

Jake Kuhn, a member of Kristy's Krushers, is missing! All the BSC members and Jake's friends gather up to search for him. Where is he? What happened? Kristy was the last one to see him before he disappeared, where did he go? An okay mystery but definitely not the best, I liked the other BSC mysterys better. ( )