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On December 5, 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 numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt like a release. Social media blew up. One post 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 maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended 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 might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an apocalyptic future”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is deeply anxious about the world around him, one where ‘everything is accelerating 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 “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by medical insurers to reject claims. He examines the indication Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what meaning 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, moving rapidly 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.

Missing Pieces

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By the conclusion, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any reference of myths, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains 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.