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On the fifth of December 2024, a major newspaper ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Gunned Down In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “shot in the back in Midtown Manhattan by a assailant who then walked coolly away”. The daytime killing was indeed both cold and shocking. But numerous US citizens reacted differently: for those who had been denied health insurance or struggled with medical bills, the news felt cathartic. Social media blew up. One comment read: “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 increase earnings on your health.”

Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 26-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate with a graduate degree in computing, was apprehended at a fast-food restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He faces court proceedings on federal and state charges of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the alleged crime? These are the issues John H Richardson seeks to resolve in an inquiry that explores broader themes, too.

The Making of a Subject

A writer for a major publication, Richardson spent years researching the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, writing stories about people “plagued by genuine concerns 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 nearly three hundred titles on a reading platform”. Their content ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own personal growth, both body and mind”. Additionally, Richardson analyzes his communications with influencers and authors as well as his many posts on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead present him as 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”. Throughout the book, Richardson attempts to cast his subject in archetypal terms.

Mangione is profoundly worried 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”, “refuse” and “depose”, etched on the bullets left behind at the crime scene. These are the phrases occasionally employed by medical insurers to reject claims. He looks at the indication Mangione had a chronic back condition, which could have been a reason 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 “everything is accelerating 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 eliminate humanity, or both.

Gaps in the Narrative

Conspicuous by their absence from the book are interviews with the key individuals. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his relatives made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the press 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 the early 2020s, company earnings rose significantly.

Unclear Conclusions

By book’s end, the reader has little insight of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his alleged crimes. More troubling, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him gives the reader the uncomfortable impression of having been exposed to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson presents his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a time of fables, the mad king, the beast in the labyrinth and the naked leader.” In that tale “outlaw heroes come with a appealing vow … They arrive in times of social turmoil, when the people are suffering 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 myths, Robin Hoods, champions or villains will not be admissible as evidence in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.