Author John Leake has lived in Vienna, Austria for nine years, where he is a former editor and translator and currently works as a freelance writer. Inspired by the film “The Third Man,” based on Graham Greene’s story of deception and disillusionment in bombed-out Vienna, Leake explored the intrigue and mystery underlying the city, where things are often not as they appear on the surface. While sitting in a café reading a local newspaper in 2002, he came across an article about the author and serial murderer Jack Unterweger. |
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Thus began Leake’s four year investigation into the life, relationships and psychopathy of the celebrity killer, who is the subject of his new book, The Vienna Woods Killer: A Writer's Double Life (Granta Books, November 2007).
Drawing from Unterweger’s diaries and letters, court records, police documents and countless interviews with those most closely connected to the case, Leake offers unparalleled insight into one of the only international serial killers ever documented.
Leake has narrated documentaries on Jack Unterweger for A&E “Biography” and the Discovery Channel and has become a leading expert on the “murderer and writer.” Over a period of four years, he cultivated relationships with Unterweger’s closest contacts, including: his last girlfriend, who wrote books proclaiming his innocence, and the Viennese lead investigator, who later became the Vienna Chief of Police. With unprecedented access to Unterweger’s diaries and letters –records that reveal Unterweger’s “mania” for meticulous note-taking – Leake exposes a side of Unterweger kept carefully concealed by his public charm.
Leake hails from Dallas, Texas. He received a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in philosophy from Boston University. After winning a graduate school fellowship in Vienna, he settled in the city. He divides his time between Vienna and Dallas. The Vienna Woods Killer is his first book.
