Hitler’s Haircut: On the morning of January 3, 1965, a young barber in New York City gets an unexpected visit from an old man whose presence is as sad as it is unsettling.

I’ve known Mark O’Brien since we both worked for a marketing and advertising firm years ago. He was PR director, and I was a copywriter in the advertising department. From the start, Mark kept the lights off in his office — the only illumination coming from the neon Batman clock hanging behind his desk and the glow from his computer screen, and whenever I wandered into his private gloaming to escape the fluorescence of my own, I’d leave laughing. And I mean laughing hard. We became friends more than colleagues, and twenty-three years later our friendship and laughter continue.

Oh sure. Mark continues to be a brilliant public relations strategist and communicator, his command of the English language enviable. But now that he has windows in his office, he has become a man of vivid imaginings — imaginings that feed his endless parade of wildly creative and ironically amusing short stories about the absurdities of life. Stories like “Hitler’s Haircut.” I mean, really? Hitler’s Haircut? Yup.

My advice? Get to know Mark by reading Hitler’s Haircut. Then read all of his many stories. And read them without hurry, because they are so richly steeped in witty situations, conversations, descriptions, thoughts, and actions delivered with such dead-pan perfection that each one is a delight. Mark O’Brien stories are a genre unto themselves — and highly addictive.

Most history buffs like myself accept the fact that Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker as the Russian army approached. But could he have escaped as did several of his henchmen? You will have to ponder that question as you read this fascinating short story by Mark Nelson O'Brien. O'Brien weaves a tale about an old man and his young assistant who knock on the apartment door of the neighborhood barber (instead of going to his shop downstairs) and demand, of all things, a haircut for the old man. The conversation among the barber, the young assistant, and the old man is somewhat revealing, at times bordering on sinister, but keeps drawing the reader in to ask the big question - could something like this really happen? Only the reader can be the judge of that. This story is cleverly composed and highly recommended.

An interesting short story that makes one wonder if things that are certain perhaps are not certain after all. Well done.

This was not my usual type of mystery book with plots and twists and turns, yet as I read it wanted to know what happened next between the barber, the self-possessed young man, and the older man with the magnetic personality, as I watched the scene unfold.

Thank you, Mark Nelson O'Brien, for writing this book which I enjoyed reading.