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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper published the headline “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Social media blew up. One post 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 created to increase earnings on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what drove the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that explores broader themes, too.

Understanding the Person

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that exist in the hidden parts 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 extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of 295 books on a reading platform”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on digital networks. These original materials, 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 trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame 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’

Interpreting the Incident

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 occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive 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 “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 conversations with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but never expected time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had chosen not to talk to the press in advance of the trial. Another glaring gap is any significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s character or what might have motivated his accused actions. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the disturbing feeling of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the people are suffering and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is clear: as Mangione’s defence team continues in its attempts have charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, any reference of myths, Robin Hoods, heroes or villains will not be admissible as evidence in support for this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” soon to be on trial for murder.