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On December 5, 2024, a leading publication ran the front-page story “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 killer who then calmly departed the scene”. The murder in broad daylight was truly chilling and disturbing. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who faced insurance rejections or struggled with medical bills, 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 artificial intelligence system the insurance company created to maximize profits on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a master’s in computer science, was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on criminal counts of murder, with prosecutors seeking the capital punishment. So who is Mangione? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? 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 devoted considerable time to studying the groups that lurk in the dark corners of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To reveal “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was taken into custody, Luigi had a list of nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their subject matter covered climate change to masculinity, along with a “emphasis on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many updates on digital networks. These original materials, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s mystery, in fact, is what gives him a little of that old deceiver’s charm”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast 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”, “deny” and “remove”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He examines the indication Mangione suffered from a chronic back condition, which might have provided motive 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 destroy us, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Notably missing from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson asked, of course, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the press 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 increased by 33%.

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 apparent empathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s final lines, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the mad king, the monster in the maze and the emperor without clothes.” In that fable “outlaw heroes come with a beautiful promise … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the population is in pain and everything is confusing anymore.”

One thing is certain: as Mangione’s legal representatives works to have accusations that could lead to the ultimate sentence thrown out, 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.