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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was truly cold and shocking. But many Americans had a different response: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, 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 maximize profits on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what might have motivated 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 lurk in the dark corners of the internet, producing articles about people “cursed with realistic fears about an end-times scenario”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on Goodreads”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Furthermore, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture 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 trickster magic”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is deeply anxious 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”, “deny” and “depose”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by medical insurers to deny coverage. He examines the indication Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what meaning there is seems to rest in Mangione’s existential anxiety 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 consensus 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 key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the media in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any significant information about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from the early 2020s, company earnings rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By the conclusion, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that tale “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s defence team works to have charges that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any reference of myths, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.