Michael Dobbs' engaging, lively Saboteurs chronicles the real-life tragicomic misadventures of the kind of Nazis Hogan and his heroes would have little difficulty outwitting. Given a small fortune and sent to America via U-boat to hinder U.S. production capabilities through strategic sabotage, eight would-be saboteurs promptly did what any man in their situation would do: They got stinking drunk, engaged in some Nazi-funded whore-mongering, and bought the kind of flashy clothing and consumer goods they couldn't find in their war-ravaged Fatherland. In other words, they behaved like Americans, which might have helped them fit in were it not for their mercurial, explosive, unpredictable leader George John Dasch, who went to the U.S. government with details of the whole operation shortly after he arrived. If Dasch expected to be treated like a hero for foiling a sinister Nazi plot, he was sorely mistaken; FDR started warming up the electric chair (for the majority of the saboteurs, at least) the minute he heard about the Nazis' capture. Similarly, the public demanded the saboteurs' heads, apparently not caring whether they'd stayed committed to Hitler's vision. The portrait of the Nazi command that emerges in Saboteurs is predictably and relentlessly unflattering: The plot to destroy American industry was not only nefarious, but also glaringly inept. Dobbs' book suggests that poor planning and terrible judgment in personnel selection should be hastily added to the Nazis' list of crimes against humanity. But where the Nazis emerge as hapless villains, the U.S. doesn't fare much better. FBI head J. Edgar Hoover seemed more intent on securing good publicity than in helping the war effort, and he wasn't about to let the case's embarrassing and potentially damaging facts get in the way of a public-relations triumph. Dobbs' vivid, cinematic book would make a terrific movie. It's the rare chapter of WWII that would be equally conducive to lowbrow comedy and grim drama.