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On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections 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 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 good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a McDonald’s 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 might have motivated the accused offense? 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 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 extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, 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 self-improvement, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his correspondence 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 unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in symbolic roles.

Mangione is deeply anxious about the world around him, one where ‘change is rapid whether we like it or not’

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “deny” and “remove”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by medical insurers to deny coverage. He looks at the indication Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which might have provided motive 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 general belief seems to be that AI is going to eventually either dominate, or destroy us, or both.

Missing Pieces

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the media in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any reference of myths, folk heroes, heroes or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.