Shortly after a breakfast generously supplied with pancakes, Nate the Great got an urgent call from Annie. "I lost a picture," said Annie. "Can you help me find it?" "Of course," said Nate. "I have found lost balloons, books, slippers, chickens. Even a lost goldfish. Now I, Nate the Great, will find a lost picture." "Oh, good," Annie said.

Nate, with the cool detachment of a Sam Spade, immediately plunges into his new and baffling case. Getting all the facts, asking the right questions, narrowing down the suspects. Nate, the boy detective who "likes to work alone," solves the mystery and tracks down the culprit. In the process he also discovers the whereabouts of Super Hex, the missing cat