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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article 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 reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One comment stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who should live or perish. 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, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was arrested at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what drove the accused offense? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

Understanding the Person

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s wide-ranging book list. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on a reading platform”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an amorphous figure. 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”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in symbolic roles.

Mangione is profoundly worried 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 uses as a clue 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 reject claims. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance 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 general belief 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 principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from the early 2020s, company earnings rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering 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 ultimate sentence dismissed, any reference of fables, folk heroes, heroes or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in defence of this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.