A Knight Without Armor by James Scott Bell

Robin here: Because I’m busy brainstorming another book while retreating with some of my favorite people in the world, I asked my good friend—and one of my favorite writers—James Scott Bell to be my guest today. If you haven’t read Jim’s books, you really should.

James Scott Bell is the winner of the International Thriller Writers Award, The Christy Award (Suspense), and the ACFW Lifetime Achievement Award. His books can be found on his website, jamesscottbell.com, and his whimsical essays at jamesscottbell.substack.com.

Here’s Jim:

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All the boys were afraid of Ricky.

I was in elementary school and Ricky was the class bully. He liked to throw his weight around in the bathroom. One time he shoved me into the sinks, giving me a whale of a bruise on my side. Another time he picked on my friend Terry, the smallest kid in school. Ricky put a glob of foamy soap in his hand then clapped his hands hard in front of Terry’s face, spraying his eyes with the stinging goop.

My “revenge” came a few years later—I grew. I hit 6’2” in Junior High. Ricky didn’t grow much at all. I was playing football, baseball, and basketball then. Funny, but Ricky didn’t pick on me anymore. 

But I’ve always detested bullies. 

That’s partly why I developed my series character, Mike Romeo. I’ve always loved the way Raymond Chandler described his own hero, Philip Marlowe (played by Bogart and several others in the movies). He put it this way:

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.

Another influence came from the days of the classic TV westerns. I was a mere pup when the series Have Gun, Will Travel was popular. But the character, Paladin (played by Richard Boone) was cool. (A paladin was a knight known for heroic deeds and the code of chivalry).

Paladin lived in the luxurious Carleton Hotel in San Francisco. There he ate the finest foods, sipped the finest brandy, and escorted the finest women to the opera. He could speak on virtually any subject.

But he was also a gun for hire. He’d go out on jobs, donning his all-black duds and six gun. His holster had a chess knight on it. The theme song began, Have Gun will Travel, reads the card of a man/A knight without armor in a savage land.

The great thing about this western was that Paladin rarely shot anyone! Instead, he used his wits to outfox bad guys, or get good guys to do the right thing.

Most of all he lived by his code. One part of that code, which Mike Romeo shares, is that if someone is being bullied, the code demands the paladin step in and stop it.

I find myself writing scenes like this in almost every book (8 so far, with 9 on the way). Chandler went on:

He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him.

The story is this man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

When people ask me what I like to write about, the word that always comes to mind is justice. I’m passionate about it, as was my dad, a lawyer in Los Angeles. I saw his commitment to justice for all. He was my hero, a paladin in his own right. He taught me the code.

In a way, I’m teaching that code through my fiction. If my three grandboys ever want to read one of Papa’s books, I’ll be teaching them, too. If they can grow up with some paladin in them and help make a just world (that isn’t dull!) then my work will be complete.

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