cover image Deadly Scholarship: The True Story of Lu Gang and Mass Murder in America's Heartland

Deadly Scholarship: The True Story of Lu Gang and Mass Murder in America's Heartland

Edwin Chen. Carol Publishing Corporation, $19.95 (202pp) ISBN 978-1-55972-241-4

After being awarded a Ph.D. by the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the Univ. of Iowa but having his thesis passed over for a prestigious prize, Chinese exchange student Lu Lang shot three faculty members, the graduate student, Shan Linhua, who won the prize, a university associate v-p and, finally, himself. Although the academic pressures in the department were enormous, they hardly explain the murders. Los Angeles Times staffer Chen (Cheating Death) shows Lu to have been a scientific genius but an immature individual and a misfit not only among American students but with his fellow Chinese, who shunned him. Furthermore, he was furiously jealous of Shan, another genius but a well-adjusted extrovert. The convergence of these strains prompted the violence, Chen shows in this searching study. Photos not seen by PW. (Feb.)