The Samaritan opens on a cold November morning in New York City. Johnny Cercone, caporegime for the DiFilippo crime family, is assassinated by an extraordinarily talented sniper outside his Brooklyn townhouse. Underboss “Fat Paulie” Franco and other high ranking mafia members are subsequently murdered spectacularly in and around the five boroughs of New York. The Russian Mob, and the flamboyant Lawrence Luther Wright, the biggest distributor of cocaine in the northeast, is pulled into an underworld war when one of his manufacturing facilities is leveled. It appears as though a deadly conflict among old-world Mafia, modern-day drug traffickers, and some of the nation’s most ruthless gangs have begun on the streets of New York. But why?

Could these sensational attacks really be the result of a power struggle or a tragic tale of love denied? The CIA believes that one of their own—Kevin “Hatch” Easter, whose wife was recently murdered in the Bronx—is behind the attacks. If this urban war escalates, and the DEA’s volatile secret was to ever go public, it could undermine their efforts to a precarious “means to an end” relationship in the northeast. And one rookie reporter, B.J. Butera, may have stumbled into the story of his life.

Hatch Easter, a gifted Agency field operative, holds the key. Knowing that he has become a hunted man by a number of dangerous organizations—including the Central Intelligence Agency, led by veteran Gray Taylor—Easter must leave his home on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, return to New York City to find the real killer, clear his name and expose a larger conspiracy that could potentially expose the United States government.

Does the CIA have a rogue field operative exacting revenge, or is there some unknown murderer, loose on the streets of New York, who has a unique agenda?

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Samaritan-Stephen-Besecker/dp/1610880269?language=en_US

About The Author

Stephen Besecker’s debut thriller blasts on the scene with the dramatic impact often reserved for the leading authors in the genre. Praised with comparisons to many best-selling spy novelists, Stephen grew up in the Buffalo, NY suburb of East Aurora. After living briefly in Palos Park, Illinois, his family returned to Western New York, specifically to Orchard Park, where Stephen graduated from Orchard Park High School.

The St. Bonaventure community, specifically, the professors at the university guided his passions toward philosophy, business marketing, and creative writing. Stephen graduated from St. Bonaventure with a business degree in marketing management where he was also the Bonnies hockey team’s assistant captain.

A boyhood writing assignment in the 4th Grade, one that stayed with Stephen, plus his love for action-oriented dramas fed his desire to create Native American Kevin “Hatch” Easter, the CIA hunter and protagonist in this initial thriller. Steve’s drive toward writing the perfect spy thriller and his propensity for exhaustive research fuels a first novel that explosively delivers.

With a great deal of guidance and tough love from retired Doubleday editor Bill Thompson, a true gentleman who worked with greats like Stephen King, John Grisham, Pat Conroy, Peter Straub, and a long list of commercially successful authors, Stephen found that all-important first door to the publishing industry.

Stephen credits some giants (James Rollins, James Grippando, Andrew Gross, Joseph Finder, Brian Haig, Gregg Hurwitz, Brad Parks, and Andy Harp)in the thriller writing genre for helping shape his craft. THE SAMARITAN emerges with a voice, characters, action, and thrilling turns that rival the best of his mentors and sets Steve Besecker apart as a rising star. The positive reaction from some of the thriller-writer superstars humbles Steve. Says Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of BURIED SECRETS and VANISHED: “The kind of big, adrenaline-pumping high-stakes conspiracy thriller of the sort that Robert Ludlum used to write — THE SAMARITAN is terrific.”

An avid fly-fisherman who likes to ski, hike, snowshoe, camp, bike, participate in mini-triathlons, play hockey, and coach youth soccer, Stephen Besecker resides in Western New York. He is presently researching his next thriller involving Kevin Easter and a CIA partner Gray Taylor that focuses on the Kindertransport, events that saved nearly a million Jewish children before World War II.