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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report 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 truly cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. One comment 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.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, 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, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. 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 nearly three hundred titles on Goodreads”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait of Mangione, instead render him an amorphous figure. 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 attempts to cast 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 uses as a clue three words – “postpone”, “refuse” and “depose”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He examines the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, 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 “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 ultimately either dominate, or destroy us, or both.

Missing Pieces

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the media in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By the conclusion, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “outlaw heroes 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 clear: as Mangione’s defence team works to have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any mention of fables, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains 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.