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On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was truly cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. 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 created to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

Understanding the Person

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 reveal “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 a reading platform”. 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 online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him 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 ‘everything is accelerating 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 “depose”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by health insurance companies to reject claims. He looks at the indication Mangione had a chronic back condition, which might have provided motive 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 “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 dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

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 family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from the early 2020s, company earnings increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that tale “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 charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any mention of myths, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.