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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. 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 artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, 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 the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what drove the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books 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”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him 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”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame 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 takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what significance there is seems to rest in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “the pace is quickening 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 eventually either dominate, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk 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 the early 2020s, company earnings increased by 33%.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson delivers his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s defence team works to have accusations that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any mention of fables, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.