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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then walked coolly away”. The daytime killing was truly chilling and disturbing. But many Americans had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Online platforms erupted. 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 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 faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what drove the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the communities that lurk in the dark corners 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 taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on a reading platform”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson analyzes his communications 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 present him as 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 trickster magic”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast 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’

The Meaning Behind the Crime

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson takes as his lead three words – “postpone”, “refuse” and “remove”, etched on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases sometimes used by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to rest 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 eventually either dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly 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%.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson delivers 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 fable “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain 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 death penalty thrown out, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.