The Red Market: On the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, and Child Traffickers

“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.

An in-depth report that takes readers on a shocking tour through a macabre global underworld where organs, bones, and live people are bought and sold on the red market

Investigative journalist Scott Carney has spent five years on the ground tracing the lucrative and deeply secretive trade in human bodies and body parts—a vast hidden economy known as the "red market." From the horrifying to the ridiculous, he discovers its varied forms: an Indian village nicknamed "Kidneyvakkam" because most of its residents have sold their kidneys for cash; unscrupulous grave robbers who steal human bones from cemeteries, morgues, and funeral pyres for anatomical skeletons used in Western medical schools and labs; an ancient temple that makes money selling the hair of its devotees to wig makers in America—to the tune of $6 million annually.

The Red Market reveals the rise, fall, and resurgence of this multibillion-dollar under­ground trade through history, from early medical study and modern universities to poverty-ravaged Eurasian villages and high-tech Western labs; from body snatchers and surrogate mothers to skeleton dealers and the poor who sell body parts to survive. While local and international law enforcement have cracked down on the market, advances in science have increased the demand for human tissue—ligaments, kidneys, even rented space in women's wombs—leaving little room to consider the ethical dilemmas inherent in the flesh-and-blood trade. At turns tragic, voyeuristic, and thought-provoking, The Red Market is an eye-opening, surreal look at a little-known global industry and its implications for all our lives.

“Gruesomely fascinating. . . . Much akin to the work of Mary Roach, The Red Market lays bare the atrocities of the human flesh trade.” - Kirkus Reviews

“Persuasively argued... The Red Market sheds an interesting light on a shadowy world.” - Miami Herald

“A fascinating read... The Red Market sheds needed light on what Carney calls “the darkets corners of our economic world.” - Mother Jones

“The Red Market is an unforgettable nonfiction thriller, expertly reported. Scott Carney takes us on a tremendously revealing and twisted ride, where life and death are now mere cold cash commodities.” - Michael Largo, author of Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die

“The Red Market is a thrilling adventure into the global body business, with keen insight into the economics that drive it. Scott Carney investigates both our insatiable need for replacement human parts and the uncanny and often disturbing ways we go about getting them.” - Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail

“An important examination . . . the book makes a persuasive case that we must acknowledge and take responsibility for the red market—lest our medical achievements precipitate horrific human cost.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Horrifying everyday tales of the body trade... Carney follows organ brokers into the mulitbillion-dollar business of buying and selling body parts. - BusinessWeek