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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “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 walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both cold and shocking. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, 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 AI algorithm 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 criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, 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 uncover “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 nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an amorphous figure. Richardson attempts to explain 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 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 takes as his lead three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He looks at the evidence Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance 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 take control, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had decided against speaking to the press in advance of the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, company earnings increased by 33%.

Ambiguous Findings

By book’s end, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s character or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. 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 tale “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any mention of myths, folk heroes, champions or villains will not be allowed in court in support for this handsome young man with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.