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On December 5, 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article then noted 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 faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One post stated: “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 created to maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, 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 capital punishment. So what is his background? And what drove the alleged crime? 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 journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson spent years researching the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an apocalyptic future”. To uncover “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 a reading platform”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These original materials, meant to paint a portrait 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 deceiver’s charm”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in symbolic roles.

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

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “deny” and “depose”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the indication 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 existential anxiety 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 general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either take control, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to 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%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “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 certain: as Mangione’s defence team works to have accusations that could lead to the death penalty thrown out, any reference of myths, folk heroes, champions or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in support for this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.