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On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The daytime killing was indeed both chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One post read: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the artificial intelligence system the insurance company designed to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors 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 investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

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 apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with online personalities and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify 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 ‘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 bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to lie 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 consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had chosen not to talk to the media in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, UHC profits rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in times of social turmoil, 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 death penalty thrown out, any mention of fables, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.