ABOUT JOHN

John Leake studied history and philosophy with Sir Roger Scruton at Boston University. He then went to Vienna, Austria on a graduate school scholarship and ended up living in the city for over a decade, working as a freelance writer and translator. His first book, Entering Hades: The Double Life of a Serial Killer (Sarah Crichton Books, FSG) was a New York Times Sunday Book Review “Editors’ Choice,” a Men’s Vogue “Best Book of 2007,” and the inspiration of The Infernal Comedy, starring John Malkovich. 

His second book, Cold a Long Time: An Alpine Mystery, was winner of the 2012 Independent Publisher Award. The German translation, Eiskalter Tod, published by the Residenz Verlag was a bestseller in Austria. His investigative work for the Jack Unterweger, Duncan MacPherson, and Angelika Foeger stories has been the subject of numerous television documentaries produced by A&E Biography, Discovery, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Fifth Estate, and the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation’s Am Schauplatz Gericht.

In March 2020, when SARS-CoV-2 started to spread in the United States, he perceived that the pandemic response was illogical at best, and possibly criminal. He found it especially suspicious how quickly public health officials dismissed repurposed medications such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. In November of 2020, he watched a video of Dr. Peter McCullough’s U.S. Senate testimony about early treatment. He sensed from this performance that Dr. McCullough was likely to lead the way in developing a more rational, honest, and humane response to the crisis. He made contact with McCullough in Dallas, Texas, where both authors live, and together they wrote The Courage to Face COVID-19.