Alexander Lernet-Holenia

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I Was Jack Mortimer

'One doesn't step into anyone's life, not even a dead man's without having to live it to the end.'

Tonight will be the longest, darkest night of Ferdinand Sponer's life - the night when a passenger is shot to death in the back of his cab. But how is it that he neither heard nor saw the killer? Alone with a dreadful secret, Sponer courses through the backstreets of Vienna, playing out possible outcomes in his tortured mind. And as the fear and paranoia close in, he realises that there is only one thing for him to do...

Twice adapted for the silver screen, I Was Jack Mortimer is a sinister tale of stolen identity, seedy underworlds, and the demons inside our heads. Of the many different sides to a man. And of the almost impreceptible line - all too easily crossed - between good and evil, love and revenge, truth and madness.

'A terrific book... One to read and then urge everyone else to follow suit'
Irish Times

Alexander Lernet-Holenia was born in Vienna in 1897. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War and became a protégé of Fainer Maria Rilke. During his life he wrote poetry, novels, plays and was a successful screenwriter. His unseasy relationship with the National Socialist Party resulted in his fall from prominence in 1944, but after the end of the Second World War, he again became a vital figure in Austrian cultural life. He died in 1976.