According to the old legend, Robin Hood was a thief, but he had a code. He only stole from wealthy people who could afford the loss, and he gave the takings to the poor. It was his way of balancing the scales, so to speak. Most of us, like Robin Hood, have our own code. We might, for instance, go faster than the speed limit, but we wouldn’t drive after drinking. Those codes – moral compasses if you like – help us to negotiate the world and make decisions. They may be different for different people, but they’re there for most of us.

There’s an interesting mention of this sort of thing in Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness (AKA Poirot Loses a Client). In that novel, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings investigate the death of wealthy Emily Arundell. There’s no shortage of suspects, as she had several relatives who are desperate for whatever she may have left them in her will. At one point, Poirot and Hastings interview one of them, Miss Arundell’s niece Theresa. With her happens to be her brother Charles. Poirot is sure they know more than they’re saying, so after the door is shut behind them, Poirot listens at it to hear their uncensored conversation. Hastings is not happy about this, believing that it’s not ‘playing the game.’ Poirot then reminds Hastings that murder is not a game. Poirot deliberately eavesdrops, sometimes lies (or at least, lets a person believe something that’s not true), and sometimes sets traps for people. All of these are things most of us would say are wrong to do. But for Poirot, those things are less important than wrong done by taking someone’s life. As fans know, he does not approve of murder.

In William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw, we are introduced to John Rhodes. He’s the unofficial boss of part of Glasgow, and he has all sorts of ‘businesses’ in the city. He’s kept his status in part by not being afraid to do whatever it takes, including ‘taking care of’ his enemies. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a code. His rule, for himself and for anyone who answers to him, is that women and children are to be left completely alone. You might go after a man, but not his family. That’s the rule. So, he’s willing to listen when Detective Inspector (DI) Jack Laidlaw pays him a visit. Jennifer Lawson was raped and murdered one night after going to a disco with a friend, and Laidlaw is investigating her death. No major clues have turned up, but Laidlaw is sure that somebody knows something. He knows that plenty of people won’t talk to the police. But Rhodes is likely to have more influence, and Rhodes is not going to be happy about a crime like this. So, Laidlaw asks Rhodes to help find the culprit. Rhodes doesn’t usually cooperate with the police, but in this case, living by his code is more important than working with ‘the other side,’ so he agrees to find out what he can.

Any fan of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch knows that he lives by a simple code: everybody counts or nobody counts. Here’s how he explains it in The Last Coyote, where he’s looking for the murderer of a long-dead prostitute. When he’s asked if the case has affected him more than other cases, he says:

‘‘But in homicide there is one rule that I have when it comes to the cases I get.’ [Bosch]
‘What is that rule?’
‘Everybody counts or nobody counts.’
‘Explain it.’
‘Just what I said. Everybody counts or nobody counts. That’s it. It means I bust my a** to make a case whether it’s a prostitute or the mayor’s wife. That’s my rule.’’

Those words are much more than a hollow motto for Bosch.

Chris Grabenstein’s Tilt a Whirl is the first in his series featuring police detective John Ceepak and his assistant, Danny Boyle. In the novel, Ceepak and Boyle are eating breakfast at a restaurant one morning when twelve-year-old Ashley Hart stumbles up the street screaming something about her father. When she calms down a bit, she tells the detectives that her father, multi-billionaire Reginald Hart, was murdered while the two of them were on a ride at a local amusement park. Suspicion falls on a local man nicknamed ‘Squeegee,’ but he’s gone missing. He could certainly have committed the murder, but Ceepak doesn’t think it’s that simple. And it turns out not to be. Hart had more than one enemy, and more than one person had a strong motive to kill him. So Ceepak and Boyle have to do their ‘homework’ to catch the killer. Ceepak is guided by strong principles. Here’s what Boyle says about him:

‘Some guys have a code they live by, some guys don’t. John Ceepak? He has a code.’

And in fact, that code plays its role in the story.

And then there’s Ian Hamilton’s ‘Uncle’ Chow Tung. A former leader of a Hong Kong triad, he later owns a business that helps people recover money that’s been stolen from them. For one reason or another, most of his clients can’t get justice from the police or other social structures. So, in desperation, they turn to him. Uncle has a particular moral code that helps him decide which cases to take, which business interests to work with, and so on. As a triad leader, he’s been on the wrong side of the law. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got an ethic of his own. So does his protégée Ava Lee. She’s a brilliant forensic accountant with a knack for finding lost or stolen money. And she’s not afraid to take some extreme measures to do her job. It’s not that she enjoys violence; rather, she believes in the idea of helping people who have nowhere else to turn. Just because she’s broken the law doesn’t mean she has no code.

And that’s the thing about codes. Even people who might break the law don’t usually break their own codes. And that can make them very interesting characters. Which ones come to mind for you?

*NOTE: The title of this post is a line from Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young’s Teach Your Children.