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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then walked coolly away”. The daytime killing was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. One comment stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company designed to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears 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 taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on Goodreads”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is deeply anxious 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”, “deny” and “remove”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread 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 eventually either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Missing Pieces

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the death penalty thrown out, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, champions or villains will not be admissible as evidence in support for this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.