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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report then noted 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 indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One comment stated: “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.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney 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 investigation that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “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 covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through 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 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 attempts to cast 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 – “postpone”, “refuse” and “depose”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He looks at the indication Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either dominate, 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 never expected time with Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents 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 population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of fables, folk heroes, heroes or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.