One of the things I hate about the Assignment series is Sam Durell's girlfriend, Deirdre. Her mission in life is to nag Sam to quit his job as a CIA agent so he can pay more attention to her. He is always worried about endangering her and proves it by endangering her multiple times. In this adventure, Deirdre has left Sam for good (again) because he refuses (again) to quit his job. In an amazingly fast rebound, she finds an astronaut and is almost immediately engaged to be married.
Another flaw in the series is how coincidence-driven the stories are. Many of the books are peopled by folks he's known in the past who become enmeshed in the world of international espionage. Old playmates from Louisiana, college roommates, army buddies-all come into play in various Assignment: capers. So it's no surprise when America's first man into space happens to be Deirdre's fiancé and definitely not a surprise when he crash lands behind the Iron Curtain. Not being able to help in any way, she immediately heads to Europe with one of Sam's fellow agents to "help" in the rescue attempt.
Naturally, Sam feels the need to ignore orders and head out to rescue the rescuers.
Meanwhile, in another amazing coincidence, the astronaut finds the woman of his dreams in the person of a peasant girl who helps hide him from Communist officials. People in this book fall in and out of love at the drop of a hat.
It's all a bit much and at the end of the story, you're asking yourself what the purpose of the whole exercise was. There are definitely better stories in this series, it's just that none of them involve Deirdre. ( )