The Watchdogs of Abaddon

Another rebirth-of-Hitler novel bound to give double-vision to readers of The Boys from Brazil. And it's not just Hitler himself, or Child Adolf, that prompts d‚j…-vu in the plotting, but the presence of a mad Nazi doctor as well--not Mengele this time, but a weirdo named Franz Schindler who has been waiting 33 years to spring the new Fuhrer on the world. Anyway, it all begins back in 1945, when Harry Bendicks, part of an Army intelligence team, discovers a very strange cottage near the German suburb of Mariendorf from which a team of SS men is racing away with a twelve-year-old child. Years later, Harry is about to retire from the L.A. Police Dept. when he finds a photograph of that very cottage hidden in the room of a murdered man. Soon Harry and his son Leif, a police psychologist, are chasing about the States and Germany (while being chased themselves) trying to crack the bizarre Nazi ring they've stumbled onto. The Big Secret? Well, what if Hitler had a son and a daughter. . . and what if they were raised separately and then mated. . . ? That--plus a nuclear plan to annihilate Israel at the same time as unveiling the new Hitler--makes this a hectic chase-arama, with some zippy moments. And if Ira Levin hadn't been there first, this might have had a chance to really catch on; but, as it is--just a derivative, excessive, undeniably lively fantasy from veteran Nazi-watcher Melchior.