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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then walked coolly away”. The murder in broad daylight was truly cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens had a different response: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, 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 designed to maximize profits on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney 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 communities that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears 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 295 books on Goodreads”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These primary sources, meant to paint a portrait 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”. Throughout the book, Richardson tries to frame 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 – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition 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 long-term spinal issue, 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, sliding faster and faster to the edge”; a world where the consensus seems to be that AI is going to eventually either take control, or destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the principal actors. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate access to Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had chosen not to talk to the press in advance of the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from the early 2020s, UHC profits rose significantly.

Ambiguous Findings

By the conclusion, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his accused actions. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, 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 periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”

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