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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Social media blew up. One comment stated: “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 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 apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.

Understanding the Person

A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts 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 reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him 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 trickster magic”. 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 uses as a clue three words – “postpone”, “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 indication Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what significance there is seems to rest in Mangione’s existential anxiety 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 ultimately either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Missing Pieces

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations 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 media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, 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 times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the death penalty thrown out, any mention of fables, folk heroes, heroes or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.