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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One post read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company designed to increase earnings on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in symbolic roles.

Mangione is profoundly worried about the world around him, one where ‘change is rapid whether we like it or not’

The Meaning Behind the Crime

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “deny” and “remove”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He examines the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either dominate, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the media in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the death penalty thrown out, any reference of myths, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in defence of this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.