Appointment with the Squire

Hitler launches a desperate, top-secret mission in this absorbing ``what-if'' thriller set in 1944, dispatching three assassins--one to Washington, another to London, a third to Moscow--to murder Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. SS commando Wilhelm Mueller, a ruthless killer raised in Boston by German parents, takes a U-boat to Georgia, assumes a murdered cop's identity and, thanks to incredible blunders by the FBI and police, becomes deputy sheriff of Warm Springs, Ga., where FDR frequently visits the spa. Despite its none-too-believable premise, this fast-paced fictional debut is studded with vivid scenes drawn from history, including the Yalta Conference, the firebombing of Dresden and antisubmarine warfare in the North Atlantic. Former UPI reporter and true-crime author Davis (The Milwaukee Murders) conjures an indomitable FDR, tired, nearing death, yet unstoppable, and an arrogant J. Edgar Hoover. The weak link is the bland protagonist, U.S. Army intelligence analyst Jack Cole, who seems only two-dimensional compared to the real-life characters. A former prisoner and near-victim of Mueller, who once used him for target practice in a Belgian forest, Cole's dual objective--to save FDR and take revenge on Mueller--stretches the formulaic plotting to implausible extremes. (Mar.)