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On December 5, 2024, a leading publication published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article then noted that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then walked coolly away”. The daytime killing was truly chilling and disturbing. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or faced exorbitant healthcare costs, the news felt like a release. Online platforms erupted. 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 maximize profits on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-year-old University of Pennsylvania alumnus with a master’s in computer science, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He awaits trial on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the capital punishment. So what is his background? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “cursed with realistic fears about an apocalyptic future”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first examines Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their content covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with online personalities 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 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 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’

Interpreting the Incident

As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “postpone”, “deny” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by medical insurers to reject claims. He looks at the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what significance there is seems to lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread 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 ultimately either take control, or destroy us, or both.

Missing Pieces

Notably missing 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 significant information about the victim, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By the conclusion, the audience 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 privy to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that fable “Robin Hoods come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and nothing makes sense anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence dismissed, any reference of fables, Robin Hoods, heroes or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in support for this attractive individual with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.