The Price of Life

A Radio 4 Book of the Week

'Jon Ronson meets Louis Theroux in the style of Joan Didion' - Telegraph

'Riveting . . . human stories that make the impersonal intelligible' - The Guardian

In surprising stories that take us into the worlds of hitmen, insurance frauds and modern-day slaves, Jenny Kleeman explores the value of human life.

We say that life is priceless. Yet the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. For philanthropists, judges, criminals and healthcare providers, it’s just part of the job. In The Price of Life, journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on an adventure to meet some of the people who decide what we’re worth.

In a series of extraordinary encounters – with people who have faked their own death or lost a loved one to terrorism, with hitmen and with modern-day slaves – she discovers more questions than answers. What happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Are some lives really worth more than others? In a world in love with data, what do we lose and what do we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic.

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'Compelling' - Literary Review

'Reframes how you think about the world' - Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn

'Gripping' - Daily Mail

'Writing, thinking and storytelling at its best' - Ben Judah, author of This Is Europe