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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight 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 like a release. 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 AI algorithm the insurance company designed to increase earnings on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-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 who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns 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 physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

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 uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “remove”, engraved on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to reject claims. He examines the evidence Mangione had a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to rest in Mangione’s philosophical dread about the world around him, one where “everything is accelerating whether we like it or not, moving rapidly to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either take control, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are conversations with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the press in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, 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 exposed to a subtle approval 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 monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … 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 continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any reference of fables, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” soon to be on trial for murder.