A wonderfully imaginative blend of “buddy book” with Edgar Allan Poe's “The Gold Bug,” complete with ghosties and ghoulies and big strong English bulldogs that go bump in the night. Well, only one English bulldog, but there is plenty of Sinbad to go around. Throw in some highly inventive puzzles and code breaking, a hero who is smarter than he thinks he is, a friend with a “million candlepower brain,” and assorted bad guys of various levels of toughness, and you have a thrilling, funny, intricate adventure/mystery mixing ciphers, architecture and numismatics. There's nothing else quite like Kin Platt’s Sinbad and Me.
