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On the fifth of December 2024, a leading publication ran the headline “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The report 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 daytime killing was truly 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. Online platforms erupted. 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 created to increase earnings on your health.”

Five days later, Luigi Mangione, a handsome, 26-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 federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So who is Mangione? And what drove the alleged crime? These are the questions John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the communities that exist in the hidden parts 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 Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both physical and mental”. Furthermore, 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 render him an amorphous figure. Richardson attempts to explain this by suggesting that “Luigi’s elusiveness, 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 profoundly worried 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 takes as his lead three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by health insurance companies to reject claims. He looks at the indication Mangione had a long-term spinal issue, which might have provided motive for an attack, but finds no proof; instead, what meaning 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 consensus 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 never expected time with Mangione himself. And his relatives stated explicitly that they had decided against speaking to the media in prior to the trial. Another flashing-yellow omission is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his guidance, from 2021 to 2023, UHC profits increased by 33%.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what might have motivated his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a subtle approval of an assassination. In the book’s final lines, Richardson delivers his mythical interpretation: “We’ve entered a era of stories, 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 times of social turmoil, 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 mention of myths, folk heroes, heroes or monsters will not be allowed in court in defence of this handsome young man with a “jawline … and lips … out of a Caravaggio painting” facing judgment for murder.