Manning K. Robertson

Don't waste your money and time on this. It's a spy novel, Pattern for Survival (1966), by Manning K. Robertson, whose real name was John Stephen Glasby. Boring routine, with no originality or interesting characters. Fifth grade Bond: the Soviet are smuggling nuclear missiles to Portugal ("Hey, they won't notice, let's do it!").

Glasby was a British paperback stalwart with over hundred war books under various pseudonyms - with an assortement of romance, thriller, crime and Western paperbacks. He started out writing SF for the British magazines in the early fifties and churned out dozens of cheap skiffy books for Badger, getting 20£ out of a single book. He had an astronomer's background, so he was able to get his "facts" straight. Glasby's SF books are said to be better than the usual British stuff from the same era, but this is clearly not an indication of that.

The cover is pretty boring. At least the woman is holding a gun. And she has a bikini line, if you go for that kind of thing. The guy is some Swedish wimp, more suited to play second guitar in a pop band. (Sorry, I seem to go under the line here. It's late. Please, forgive me.) The Finnish title means The Spy Trap.