Over the past few years, there has been growing criticism of the performance record of the U.S. organ transplant system.

The number of people on the national transplant waiting list remains persistently high – over 100,000 – with an average of thirteen people who die every day waiting for an organ, according to the Health Resources Service Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Is this number high because there are not enough donors willing to commit to organ donation? The answer is surprising.

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“Body Merchants is crisply detailed, and moments of suspense unfold naturally, building an easy tension that hints at the story’s larger mystery.” — BookLife Prize – 2024

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Here’s what the Midwest Book Review says about Body Merchants:

“Body Merchants is a novel that delivers with the look and feel of a mystery, but holds bigger-picture thinking. It injects medical and ethical issues into reporter Ellie Andrews’s investigation of a star athlete’s sudden death after a kidney transplant…. The result is a well-written, thoroughly engrossing blend of thriller, mystery, psychological and ethical examination, and court case. Body Merchants will satisfy a wide range of audiences, from libraries seeking thought-provoking novels that bring medical and criminal interests to life to individuals looking for depth in their entertainment reading.”
— Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

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In the newly published novel, Body Merchants, author Elaine Bossik dramatizes one of the world’s most recurring crimes: human organ trafficking and China’s practice of executing prisoners for their organs.

Ms. Bossik, a former New Yorker and medical writer, has been researching the illegal trade in human organs since the 1990s. She was intrigued by news accounts of cadavers stolen from funeral establishments, morgues and crematoriums in the U.S., and China’s practice of executing prisoners and harvesting their organs.

“I wanted my story to show how vulnerable people can become victims of the underground organ trade market,” says Ms. Bossik. “The main character in my novel, reporter Ellie Andrews, investigates a murder in a Virginia prison that leads her to a shocking discovery—the inmate’s organs and other body parts are missing.”

Ms. Bossik’s novel shows how the crime of organ theft can happen in America. Ellie Andrews risks her life exposing a sinister scheme to harvest and sell organs and tissues from prisoners. She uncovers a trade in human organs that reaches into law enforcement, government and her own family.

In the U.S., 104,0000 people are on the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) waiting list for a transplant, and 22 Americans die every day waiting for an organ (The Washington Post, March 22, 2023).

For decades desperate patients from all over the world have been traveling to China and other countries for life-saving organ transplants. According to a report in The Telegraph (June 9, 2023), 60,000 to 90,000 organ transplants take place in China every year. Evidence identifies Chinese prisoners as a major source of transplant organs. They are routinely executed when their organs are a match for patients willing to pay.

Human organs are only viable for short periods of time and must be transplanted within hours. But human tissues—skin, bones, veins, tendons, heart valves and corneas—can be stored and used in surgeries and the manufacture of medical products. “Cadavers are valuable commodities that support a multibillion dollar human tissues industry in the U.S.,” says Ms. Bossik. According to a report in the The Orange County Register (Dec., 2001), all the tissues that can be harvested from one body are estimated to be worth $220,000.

Body Merchants is fiction but is rooted in fact and based on the illegal worldwide market in human organs and tissues. Many large U.S. companies that are traded on the New York Stock Exchange every day benefit from the underground market. “In my novel,” Ms. Bossik says, “Ellie Andrews uncovers the money trail at the root of the underground market.”

Body Merchants will enlighten a large audience. The novel provides a dramatic perspective of the current illegal trade in human organs and tissues and exposes the dangers inherent in the for-profit prison system in the U.S. that make prisoners vulnerable to exploitation. Ms. Bossik expects that readers of her novel will wonder, “Could this happen here?”

For more information about Body Merchants or to schedule an interview, please contact Elaine Bossik at 561-364-2358, 561-376-4200 or elaine@elainebossik.com.

About the Author: Elaine Bossik is a novelist, screenwriter and editor. She grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and graduated from Brooklyn College (CUNY), where she earned BA and MS degrees. After teaching in the New York City school system for several years, she pursued a new career path, first as an advertising copywriter, and then as a medical writer and editor. She lives in Florida with her husband and family, where she enjoys Florida’s semi-tropical environment and pens her novels. The idea for Body Merchants grew out of the reality of human organ trafficking, and the big money behind it. In addition to Body Merchants, Elaine Bossik is the author of The Last Victim, a literary romance novel.

Book Details
Title: Body Merchants
Genre: Thriller
Language: English
eBook and Paperback: 251 pages
Book Dimensions: 5×5 x 8.5
Publisher: Portable Shopper, LLC
Publication Date: January 2024
ISBN: paperback: 978-0-9842419-5-8 Price: $16.95
ISBN: eBook: 978-0-9842419-6-5 Price: $9.95

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On October 7, 2017, the Murder on the Beach Mystery Book Store in Delray Beach, FL hosted “The Indie Experience.” As a guest panelist, Elaine Bossik discussed her experience publishing The Last Victim. The authors provided details about book editing and design, marketing, and “why I write” points of view. It was a lively and informative program, moderated by Nancy J. Cohen, with many questions from the audience.

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On April 13, 2016, the Murder on the Beach Book Store in Delray Beach, FL hosted the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) meeting. Elaine Bossik, a member of Two minute readingWNBA, was invited to read a selection from her novel, The Last Victim. Elaine read a passage that described a trip to the Catskills during the heyday of the Catskills that brought back memories for many in the audience.

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The depiction and exploration of love and the resulting plot twists create the dramatic moments that draw readers to these stories. These stories also portray the many faces of love, including romantic love between partners or lovers, as well as familial love between a mother and a child, a father and a child, or between brothers and sisters.

Author Victor Hugo dramatizes both familial love and romantic love in his epic tale, Les Misérables, which tells the story of Fantine, a tragic character who is left with an illegitimate child after her lover abandons her. Fantine desperately loves her child, Cosette, and will do anything to support her, even turning to prostitution. The familial love for Cosette is then continued by Jean Valjean, who rescues the girl after Fantine dies. The story spins in another direction and focuses on romantic love when Cosette grows into a beautiful young woman and falls in love with Marius, a student of the French rebellion.

Though Victor Hugo published Les Misérables in 1862, his themes of love are timeless, as can be seen in the theatrical, TV, and film adaptations of this novel.

Shakespeare’s tragic tale of romantic love ― Romeo and Juliet ― is also timeless, and the numerous modern spinoffs of this story prove that point. Romantic love draws readers to Jane Austen novels such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, as well as to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, a classic tale of love and adultery, continues to fascinate readers.

The theme of love continues in modern-day novels, including 50 Shades of Grey (E.L. James), Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn), The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Me Before You (Jo Jo Moyes), My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult), Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen), China Doll (Lisa See), and The Light Between Oceans (M. L. Stedman).

And the audience for these new love stories is robust. Total romance fiction sales in 2013 reached $1.08 billion, according to statistics from the Romance Writers of America.

For authors whose stories revolve around love and romance, there will continue to be a growing audience eager to read them.

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