The Hardy Boys

<p><span>The Missing Chums is volume 4 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 108th on Publishers Weekly's All-Time Bestselling Children's Book List for the United States with 1189973 copies sold as of 2001.</span></p><p><span>The Hardy Boys brothers Frank and Joe Hardy are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer the founder of book packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. The books were written by several ghostwriters most notably Leslie McFarlane under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The plot concerns the disappearance of the Boys' chums </span><span>Chet</span><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> and </span><span>Biff</span><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> when they take a </span><span>motorboat</span><span style=color: rgba(32 33 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> trip down the coast. When Frank and Joe finally find them they are all captured. In the end they triumph over the bad guys on mysterious Blacksnake Island.</span></p>