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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper published the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was indeed both 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. 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.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, twenty-six-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 federal and state charges of murder, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty. 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 investigation that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the communities that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. 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 Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old trickster magic”. Here, as elsewhere, Richardson tries to frame his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is deeply anxious 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”, “deny” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the indication 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 lie in Mangione’s philosophical dread 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 general belief seems to be that AI is going to ultimately either take control, or destroy us, or both.

Missing Pieces

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but never expected access to Mangione himself. And his relatives 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, company earnings rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the audience has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s apparent empathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an assassination. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the insane ruler, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that tale “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in periods of unrest, when the population is in pain 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 reference of myths, 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” soon to be on trial for murder.