Richard S. Prather’s Dagger of Flesh came fifth in a series of more than forty books starring franchise detective Shell Scott. This Falcon Books edition is from 1952, with excellent Rudy Nappi cover art. The book goes back so far Scott still had black hair. Prather changed it to snow white at some point, but here he’s described by a woman as having, “Black curly hair, brown eyes, a very nice nose, even a Cary Grant dimple in that square chin.” Plotwise he helps a friend who’s been given a post-hypnotic suggestion that may be forcing him to sell his quarter million dollar business for $25,000 to organized crime figures. In desperation he signs the enterprise over to tough guy Scott, and now the crooks have a problem. Of course, with hypnotists around anything can happen, fictionally speaking. Scott begins to suspect he’s been post-hypnotically coerced into committing murder. Improbable? All of it, definitely. Prather does his best with it, but it doesn’t really work. Well, we’ll give him a pass on this one. It’s written fine, so that’s something.
1925—Mein Kampf Published
While serving time in prison for his role in a failed coup, Adolf Hitler dictaes and publishes volume 1 of his manifesto Mein Kampf (in English My Struggle or My Battle), the book that outlines his theories of racial purity, his belief in a Jewish conspiracy to control the world, and his plans to lead Germany to militarily acquire more land at the expense of Russia via eastward expansion.