On December 5, 2024, a major newspaper ran the front-page story “Insurance CEO Shot Dead In Manhattan”. The article went on to state that Brian Thompson was “fatally wounded from behind in Midtown Manhattan by a killer who then calmly departed the scene”. 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. Online platforms erupted. One comment stated: “All jokes aside … no one here is the judge of who deserves to live or die. That’s the job of the AI algorithm the insurance company created to increase earnings on your health.”
Less than a week after, Luigi Mangione, a good-looking, 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 criminal counts of murder, with the district attorney seeking the death penalty. So what is his background? And what might have motivated the accused offense? These are the questions John H Richardson attempts to answer in an investigation that delves into wider topics, too.
A journalist for Esquire magazine, Richardson devoted considerable time to studying the groups that exist in the hidden parts of the internet, producing articles about people “plagued by genuine concerns about an end-times scenario”. To uncover “the making” of his subject, Richardson first reviews Mangione’s extensive reading. We learn that “[when] he was arrested, Luigi had a list of 295 books on Goodreads”. Their subject matter ranged from climate change to masculinity, along with a “focus on his own self-improvement, both physical and mental”. Additionally, Richardson sifts through his correspondence with online personalities and authors as well as his many updates on social media. These primary sources, intended to depict a picture of Mangione, instead render him an unclear character. Richardson attempts to explain this by proposing 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’
As for “the meaning” of the title, Richardson uses as a clue three words – “delay”, “refuse” and “depose”, engraved on the ammunition left behind at the crime scene. These are the terms sometimes used by health insurance companies to deny coverage. He examines the evidence Mangione suffered from a long-term spinal issue, which could have been a reason for an attack, but discovers no confirmation; instead, what meaning there is seems to lie in Mangione’s existential anxiety 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 eventually either dominate, or eliminate humanity, or both.
Conspicuous by their absence from the book are conversations with the principal actors. Richardson made requests, but did not anticipate time with Mangione himself. And his family made it clear that they had chosen not to talk to the press in prior to the trial. Another glaring gap is any detailed data about the deceased, Thompson, though we learn that under his leadership, from 2021 to 2023, company earnings increased by 33%.
By book’s end, the audience has no clear understanding of Mangione’s personality or what could have driven his alleged crimes. Worse still, Richardson’s obvious sympathy for him creates the disturbing feeling of having been privy to a veiled endorsement of an targeted killing. In the book’s closing remarks, Richardson delivers his fairytale assessment: “We’ve entered a era of stories, the insane ruler, 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 people are suffering and everything is confusing anymore.”
One thing is clear: as Mangione’s legal representatives continues in its attempts have accusations that could lead to the death penalty dismissed, any mention of fables, folk heroes, heroes or monsters will not be admissible as evidence in support for this attractive individual with a “features reminiscent of classical art” facing judgment for murder.
An avid hiker and nature photographer with a passion for exploring the Italian Alps and sharing travel insights.
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