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On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The report then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The daytime killing was indeed both 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 like a release. Social media blew up. One post read: “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 maximize profits on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson attempts to answer in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

Understanding the Person

A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories 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 arrested, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. 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 correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an amorphous figure. Richardson tries to justify this by proposing 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 ‘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”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He looks at the evidence Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason 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 key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had decided against speaking 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 leadership, from the early 2020s, company earnings increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, 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 delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the naked leader.” In that tale “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … 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 charges that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any mention of fables, Robin Hoods, champions or monsters will not be allowed in court in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.