What they're saying about
The Organ Thieves
"The Organ Thieves was written before the disparities of covid-19 and George Floyd's death. The abuses it records are decades old. But the gruesome disregard for Black lives it documents makes it an urgently modern warning."--The Washington Post
"Gripping"--Scientific American
"Chip Jones's The Organ Thieves is the brilliantly researched and written story of how Jim Crow racism infected the medical profession during the Cold War era. The twists and turns in this Virginia saga are astonishingly sad and at times triumphant. Every page is a revelation. A must read!"
—Douglas Brinkley, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and professor of history at Rice University and author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race
“This powerful book weaves together a medical mystery, a legal drama, and a sweeping history, its characters confronting unprecedented issues of life and death under the shadows of centuries of racial injustice. Jones evokes each person and each scene with remarkable skill and compassion, recreating an America of the 1960s and 1970s that speaks directly to the dilemmas of the twenty-first century.” —Edward L. Ayers, Historian and Winner of the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes
"Beautifully written and deeply researched, Chip Jones gripping story of the first heart transplant case in segregated Virginia reads like a true crime thriller. The Organ Thieves is a riveting and chilling account of how race and poverty affect medical science and medical care. I found Jones' book impossible to put down and just as impossible to forget."
—Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (retired)
“Chip has a remarkable talent for uncovering and telling stories. The years he has spent on this book shed light on this fascinating and alarming slice of history.”--Derek Jeter, National Baseball Hall of Famer, executive, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
“When a great reporter meets the story he was born to tell, Chip Jones’s The Organ Thieves is the result. What happened to Bruce Tucker on an operating table in Richmond, Virginia in 1968 can’t be dismissed simply as the misdeeds of certain doctors in a certain city in a bygone era. Jones offers something richer and more complex. This extraordinary book raises fundamental questions about racial injustice and inequality that haunt us to this day.”
—Charles Slack, author of Liberty’s First Crisis and Hetty
“A riveting true story of the race to perform the first heart transplant—a clash of humanity and science that redefined the legal meaning of ‘life.’ Jones brilliantly explores the racial inequities of the unreconstructed South of 1968 and at last brings a modicum of justice to Bruce Tucker, a man whose legacy was his actual heart.”
—Dean King, nationally bestselling author of Skeletons on the Zahara and The Feud
“The Organ Thieves is a heartbreaker: for a family, for a community, for all the powerless, and dispossessed. It exposes the dark well of racism, self-interest, and greed we always fight to hide. But like so many great books, it enters as tragedy and exits as a celebration of honesty, strength, and the power of a few good, dedicated people to change the world. Yes, it will steal your heart. I mean… obviously, right? But it will also get into your head and into your soul.” —Bret Witter, 8-time New York Times bestselling writer of The Monuments Men and The Master Plan
“In this captivating true story, journalist Chip Jones outlines how ambitious surgeons took a black man’s heart without his family’s consent and implanted it into a white man’s body in the name of scientific progress. The Organ Thieves is a gripping exposé unveiling racism at the heart of medical advances.”
—Kristen Green, nationally bestselling author of Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle
“Startling… A powerful story that examines institutional racism, mortality, medical ethics, and the nature of justice for black men living in the American South… A moving exploration of an unthinkable trespass against an innocent man.”
--Kirkus Reviews
"A horrific story superbly told."--The Irish Times
"This shocking account, reminiscent of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will open your eyes to the way Black people have been mistreated by the medical establishment for decades"--Good Housekeeping.com
"A rigorously researched story of race and medical mistreatment [that] reveals how human rights can be eroded in the pursuit of medical progress."--Discover magazine
"In this doggedly reported account, journalist Jones (War Shots) reveals unexpected links between racial inequality and the race to perform Virginia’s first human-to-human heart transplant ... The result is a dramatic and fine-grained exposé of the mistreatment of black Americans by the country’s white medical establishment."—Publishers Weekly
“With elements of legal and social history, this work is recommended for readers interested in the history of race and racism, and how it relates to medical practice in the United States.”—Library Journal
"Engrossing... Deeply reported, highly readable"--Style Weekly
"...[a] stirring, minute-by-minute saga.... [Jones'] well-considered book has the power to open and change minds, and it ought to be widely read."--Bookreporter
“Black lives won’t truly matter until this nation has a change of heart.”—Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Times-Dispatch
“With a reporter’s eye for the telling detail, he dissects instances of medical hubris and arrogance, of institutional racism and disrespect. And he does so with a wealth of fairness and a measure of quiet passion.”--Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star
"Like an epic novel…The Organ Thieves carries the reader across many centuries
… as engaging as a fictitious thriller.--BOOMER
"Gripping"--Scientific American
"Chip Jones's The Organ Thieves is the brilliantly researched and written story of how Jim Crow racism infected the medical profession during the Cold War era. The twists and turns in this Virginia saga are astonishingly sad and at times triumphant. Every page is a revelation. A must read!"
—Douglas Brinkley, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and professor of history at Rice University and author of American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race
“This powerful book weaves together a medical mystery, a legal drama, and a sweeping history, its characters confronting unprecedented issues of life and death under the shadows of centuries of racial injustice. Jones evokes each person and each scene with remarkable skill and compassion, recreating an America of the 1960s and 1970s that speaks directly to the dilemmas of the twenty-first century.” —Edward L. Ayers, Historian and Winner of the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes
"Beautifully written and deeply researched, Chip Jones gripping story of the first heart transplant case in segregated Virginia reads like a true crime thriller. The Organ Thieves is a riveting and chilling account of how race and poverty affect medical science and medical care. I found Jones' book impossible to put down and just as impossible to forget."
—Ty Seidule, Professor Emeritus of History at West Point, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (retired)
“Chip has a remarkable talent for uncovering and telling stories. The years he has spent on this book shed light on this fascinating and alarming slice of history.”--Derek Jeter, National Baseball Hall of Famer, executive, entrepreneur, and philanthropist
“When a great reporter meets the story he was born to tell, Chip Jones’s The Organ Thieves is the result. What happened to Bruce Tucker on an operating table in Richmond, Virginia in 1968 can’t be dismissed simply as the misdeeds of certain doctors in a certain city in a bygone era. Jones offers something richer and more complex. This extraordinary book raises fundamental questions about racial injustice and inequality that haunt us to this day.”
—Charles Slack, author of Liberty’s First Crisis and Hetty
“A riveting true story of the race to perform the first heart transplant—a clash of humanity and science that redefined the legal meaning of ‘life.’ Jones brilliantly explores the racial inequities of the unreconstructed South of 1968 and at last brings a modicum of justice to Bruce Tucker, a man whose legacy was his actual heart.”
—Dean King, nationally bestselling author of Skeletons on the Zahara and The Feud
“The Organ Thieves is a heartbreaker: for a family, for a community, for all the powerless, and dispossessed. It exposes the dark well of racism, self-interest, and greed we always fight to hide. But like so many great books, it enters as tragedy and exits as a celebration of honesty, strength, and the power of a few good, dedicated people to change the world. Yes, it will steal your heart. I mean… obviously, right? But it will also get into your head and into your soul.” —Bret Witter, 8-time New York Times bestselling writer of The Monuments Men and The Master Plan
“In this captivating true story, journalist Chip Jones outlines how ambitious surgeons took a black man’s heart without his family’s consent and implanted it into a white man’s body in the name of scientific progress. The Organ Thieves is a gripping exposé unveiling racism at the heart of medical advances.”
—Kristen Green, nationally bestselling author of Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle
“Startling… A powerful story that examines institutional racism, mortality, medical ethics, and the nature of justice for black men living in the American South… A moving exploration of an unthinkable trespass against an innocent man.”
--Kirkus Reviews
"A horrific story superbly told."--The Irish Times
"This shocking account, reminiscent of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, will open your eyes to the way Black people have been mistreated by the medical establishment for decades"--Good Housekeeping.com
"A rigorously researched story of race and medical mistreatment [that] reveals how human rights can be eroded in the pursuit of medical progress."--Discover magazine
"In this doggedly reported account, journalist Jones (War Shots) reveals unexpected links between racial inequality and the race to perform Virginia’s first human-to-human heart transplant ... The result is a dramatic and fine-grained exposé of the mistreatment of black Americans by the country’s white medical establishment."—Publishers Weekly
“With elements of legal and social history, this work is recommended for readers interested in the history of race and racism, and how it relates to medical practice in the United States.”—Library Journal
"Engrossing... Deeply reported, highly readable"--Style Weekly
"...[a] stirring, minute-by-minute saga.... [Jones'] well-considered book has the power to open and change minds, and it ought to be widely read."--Bookreporter
“Black lives won’t truly matter until this nation has a change of heart.”—Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Times-Dispatch
“With a reporter’s eye for the telling detail, he dissects instances of medical hubris and arrogance, of institutional racism and disrespect. And he does so with a wealth of fairness and a measure of quiet passion.”--Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star
"Like an epic novel…The Organ Thieves carries the reader across many centuries
… as engaging as a fictitious thriller.--BOOMER