Take a close look: The author has seven non-repeating letters in his name. And his book is about the "dollar bill," which has ten letters. Ten, of course, is 3+7, which makes it even more mysterious. If you can follow this sort of tortured logic, you'll love this book.

The author pays careful details to things most people would overlook: things like how many bricks are on the face of the pyramid (he counts 73, although it's easy to see that there are six more covered by the date), how many dots there are over the eagle's head (55), and how many eyes are on the dollar bill (4, 2 on each side). Virtually every number he comes up with -- he often ends up with 1, 3, 7, 10, 13, or 21 -- are all "magical" numbers. But he never tells us why that's important.

Of course, his "analysis" could go on forever. He carefully draws lines on the ascenders and descenders of the "A"s in "AMERICA" to find that they cross in very meaningful places (the center of the eagle's star, for one). But he conveniently forgets to do the same for the "A" in the middle of "STATES." He shows several versions of the Great Seal, and contemplates why the number of arrows and olive branch leaves changes over time, hinting but never quite outlining what nefarious mystery might be behind that. The most reasonable answer seems to be the guy in charge of making the seals probably wanted easy-to-remember numbers of things when he made them, and 13 was America's number (with the 13 colonies and all).

Most of the book deals with the reverse of the dollar bill, and it's easy to wonder about some of the strange stuff that appears there (the "Eye of God," for example, hovering over the unfinished pyramid). This book is strong at pointing those oddities out -- and sometimes they are explained decently, but always with a hint that there are more mysteries as to why they are so. I'll give it points for being a fun, entertaining read, but it loses points for its lack of conspiracy theories that might explain these "secret symbols." ( )

Neato torpedo. An excellent dive into the symbolism on the dollar. ( )