Books: Scientific Thriller

THE IRON STAR—John Taine—Dutton ($2.50).

If an iron tack were put near a mountain of pure iron, the tack would weigh more than it did before. This scientific conditional relative known as “induced mass,” Author Taine has made the basis for a hair-raising yarn of an African primeval god, a subterranean mass of meteoric metal whose emanations corrupt the souls of men and change their bodies; the startling adventures among a tribe of degenerated human beings of three sane Chicago scientists and their pretty secretary. The Iron Star is unusual among thrillers not only in its subject-matter but in the skeptical and light-hearted (at times distressingly lighthearted) style in which all these wonders are set forth.