The Organ Broker

The Organ Broker, named one of five finalists for the 2015 Hammett Prize for literary excellence in the field of crime writing (winner TBA in October of 2016), is the thrilling story of an underground black market organ dealer known as “New York Jack.” For eighteen years Jack has been a “transplant tourism director,” sending wealthy Americans and Europeans in need of kidneys and other organs to third world countries where they would buy them from transplant centers on the take. The death of a client and a newfound relationship lead to a crisis of conscience as he is forced to choose between a two million dollar commission—and participating in a murder. Jack races to South Africa, Brazil, and beyond, just one step ahead of his adversary and the FBI, in search of one small act of redemption. As a disaffected youth in the late eighties, Jack Trayner entered the criminal world, selling coke when he needed money to pay his way through college. Although he later graduated from law school, an opportunity to earn easy money eventually seduced him into the bizarre and illegal black market for organs—a business that some consider horrendous and a small number of others deem to be heroic. The dual nature of this business assuaged Jack’s guilt and allowed him to flourish, yet the death of a client makes what he is doing all too real. The Organ Broker represents Jack’s confession. The international black market sale of organs is very real and operates at this very moment behind closed hospital doors in many cities all around the world. It is a world that most people are only vaguely aware exists, and few of us know much, if anything, about, until now—in the pages of the confession of New York Jack. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

The Organ Broker, which was named a finalist for the 2015 Hammett Prize for literary excellence in the field of crime writing, is the story of Jack Trayner—known as New York Jack—an underground black market organ dealer. After years of selling “life,” Jack’s conscience begins to overcome his resolve for this ghastly business. His desire for redemption is fueled by his new relationships with a woman named Michelle and a young man named Mark. As a disaffected youth in the late eighties, Jack entered the criminal world, selling coke when he needed money to pay his way through college. Although he later graduated from law school, an opportunity to earn easy money eventually seduced him into the bizarre and illegal black market for organs—a business that some consider horrendous and a small number of others deem to be heroic. The dual nature of this business assuaged Jack’s guilt and allowed him to flourish, yet the death of a client makes what he is doing all too real. The Organ Broker serves as Jack’s confession and his attempt at redemption as he tries to save one last innocent patient and potential donor, instead of closing his biggest sale ever—one that would require a premeditated murder. The international black market sale of organs is real and operates at this very moment behind closed hospital doors in many cities all around the world. It is a world that most people are only vaguely aware exists, and few of us know much, if anything, about, until now—in the pages of the confession of New York Jack. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

“An unforgettable nonfiction thriller, expertly reported….A tremendously revealing and twisted ride, where life and death are now mere cold cash commodities.” —Michael Largo, author of Final Exits Award-winning investigative journalist and contributing Wired editor Scott Carney leads readers on a breathtaking journey through the macabre underworld of the global body bazaar, where organs, bones, and even live people are bought and sold on The Red Market. As gripping as CSI and as eye-opening as Mary Roach’s Stiff, Carney’s The Red Market sheds a blazing new light on the disturbing, billion-dollar business of trading in human body parts, bodies, and child trafficking, raising issues and exposing corruptions almost too bizarre and shocking to imagine.

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is caught up in the murky world of human trafficking in Dead Tomorrow, by award-winning crime writer Peter James. Now a major ITV series, Grace, adapted for television by screenwriter Russell Lewis and starring John Simm. The body of a missing boy is dredged from the seabed off the Sussex coast, missing vital organs. Soon after, two more bodies are found . . . A teenager in Brighton will die if she does not receive an urgent transplant. When the health system threatens to let her down her mother takes drastic action and goes to an online broker in black-market organs. The broker can provide what she wants, but it will come at a price. As Roy Grace investigates the recovered bodies, he unearths a gang of child traffickers operating from Eastern Europe. Soon Grace and his team will find themselves in a race against time to save the life of a young street kid, while a desperate mother will stop at nothing to save her daughter’s life . . . Although the Roy Grace novels can be read in any order, Dead Tomorrow is the fifth thrilling title in the bestselling series. Enjoy more of the Brighton detective’s investigations with Dead Like You and Dead Man’s Grip. Now a major ITV series, Grace, starring John Simm.

“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.” —Epictetus “Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will follow.” —Matthew 24:28 Body Brokers is an audacious, disturbing, and compellingly written investigative exposé of the lucrative business of procuring, buying, and selling human cadavers and body parts. Every year human corpses meant for anatomy classes, burial, or cremation find their way into the hands of a shadowy group of entrepreneurs who profit by buying and selling human remains. While the government has controls on organs and tissue meant for transplantation, these “body brokers” capitalize on the myriad other uses for dead bodies that receive no federal oversight whatsoever: commercial seminars to introduce new medical gadgetry; medical research studies and training courses; and U.S. Army land-mine explosion tests. A single corpse used for these purposes can generate up to $10,000. As journalist Annie Cheney found while reporting on this subject over the course of three years, when there’s that much money to be made with no federal regulation, there are all sorts of shady (and fascinating) characters who are willing to employ questionable practices—from deception and outright theft—to acquire, market and distribute human bodies and parts. In Michigan and New York she discovers funeral directors who buy corpses from medical schools and supply the parts to surgical equipment companies and associations of surgeons. In California, she meets a crematorium owner who sold the body parts of people he was supposed to cremate, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits. In Florida, she attends a medical conference in a luxury hotel, where fresh torsos are delivered in Igloo coolers and displayed on gurneys in a room normally used for banquets. “That torso that you’re living in right now is just flesh and bones to me. To me, it’s a product,” says the New Jersey-based broker presiding over the torsos. Tracing the origins of body brokering from the “resurrectionists” of the nineteenth century to the entrepreneurs of today, Cheney chronicles how demand for cadavers has long driven unscrupulous funeral home, crematorium and medical school personnel to treat human bodies as commodities. Gripping, often chilling, and sure to cause a reexamination of the American way of death, Body Brokers is both a captivating work of first-person reportage and a surprising inside look at a little-known aspect of the “death care” world.

If most Americans accept the notion that the market is the most efficient means to distribute resources, why should body parts be excluded? Each year thousands of people die waiting for organ transplants. Many of these deaths could have been prevented were it not for the almost universal moral hand-wringing over the concept of selling human organs. Kidney for Sale by Owner, now with a new preface, boldly deconstructs the roadblocks that are standing in the way of restoring health to thousands of people. Author and bioethicist Mark Cherry reasserts the case that health care could be improved and lives saved by introducing a regulated transplant organs market rather than by well-meant, but misguided, prohibitions.

Saving lives through organ transplantation has become increasingly possible thanks to advances in research and care. Today, the complex field of transplantation continues to develop rapidly, fuelled by demographic change and further evolutions in scientific understanding. The Oxford Textbook of Transplant Anaesthesia and Critical Care has been written and edited by pioneers in the field of organ transplantation with an international team of authors, in order to equip anaesthetists and intensivists with the knowledge and training necessary to provide high quality and evidence-based care. The text addresses fundamentals aspects of scientific knowledge, care of the donor patient, transplant ethics and special considerations. Dedicated sections address each of the major organs; kidney, pancreas, liver, heart and lung, intestinal and multivisceral. Within each organ-based section, expert authors explore underlying disease, planning for transplantation, specialized procedures, perioperative and critical care management as well as post-transplant considerations. Focus points for future developments in transplant immunology are also set out, inspiring current practitioners to engage with current clinical research and help participate in the further advancement of the science of transplantation. The print edition of the Oxford Textbook of Transplant Anaesthesia and Critical Care comes with a year's access to the online version on Oxford Medicine Online. By activating your unique access code, you can read and annotate the full text online, follow links from the references to primary research materials, and view, enlarge and download all the figures and tables.

This title gives readers a balanced look at the arguments surrounding organ and body donation. Readers will learn the history of organ and body donation, as well as the pros and cons of organ transplants and harvesting organs. Color photos and informative sidebars accompany easy-to-follow text. Features include a table of contents, timeline, facts, additional resources, web sites, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index. Essential Viewpoints is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.