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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published 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 killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One comment 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 created to maximize profits on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson spent years researching the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles 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 subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. 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”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast 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 takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the indication Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what significance 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 general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either take control, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from the early 2020s, UHC profits rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have accusations 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 support for this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.