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On December 5, 2024, a leading publication ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was truly chilling and disturbing. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Social media blew up. One comment read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? 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 uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an amorphous figure. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

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 uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by medical insurers to reject claims. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “the pace is quickening whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Missing Pieces

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, heroes or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.