Building Character: Scott "Mossad" Murphy

By the time this blog posts, I should be on the road once more, on my way to LibertyCon. But since we're still a little under a week out from the release of A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller, I thought it would be a good idea to bring this up again.


Scott "Mossad" Murphy started in 2002, when my father and I were at a family party -- they were boring people, and we didn't know anyone, and I come by my antisocial qualities honestly. We were having a discussion on a few different topics, and came up with two concepts. The first were the Kraft brothers, best known as showing up in the Love at First Bite series. They were "Merle" "Dalf" and "Tal" Kraft.

The other was Scott Murphy.

Scott, you see, was born of a news item that had waves of Evangelical Christians flooding into Israel, post-9/11. But what if someone else had decided to come to Israel, not for political reasons, but for revenge? He wanted to hunt terrorists. To hurt terrorists. And Israel, as far as he could tell, did that 24/7. If the jihadist scum could have Jon "Taliban" Walker, he could be Scott "Mossad" Murphy.

When I wrote A Pius Man originally, in 2004, Scott seemed to be a perfect fit for the role. He'd already guest starred in another book series -- one I haven't published yet, sorry, I've been busy -- and I had a good grasp on his character.

Obviously, over time, I had to shift things. The image above, for example, of Scott's Mossad file, has him being born in 1982. This would put him in his 30s. I'm thinking that's a little old, considering what happens over the course of the novels. Thus, one of the things I had to change about Scott was his age. Also, please consider that things that were high-tech at the time could now be gotten as an app on the iPhone. So, while I was updating things, might as well reboot him a little in the drafts. His origin, as time went on, went from seeing 9/11 happen while he was in college and wanting payback, to having grown up with a plan to hunt these f**kers down and killing them. He became a little darker as time went on -- then again, so did I.

To quote Isaac Asimov, beware the wrath of a patient man.

Murphy is very patient.

It helps that I essentially wrote a short biography for Scott, like I have for all of my other characters. The character becomes alive in my head, and all I need to do is drop him into a situation and let him play.


Though it wasn't until I started writing short stories for Scott that I realized how much of a stiff he really was. But, then again, I don't know too many party animals who essentially dedicate their lives to revenge, and decide that the best method is to become a weaponized accountant when they grow up.

Yes, weaponized accountant. And I mean stealing money from terrorists, not necessarily the Ben Affleck film, The Accountant (which is, much to my own surprise, a really good movie, you should check it out.

Of course, after I wrote the program for Scott -- his bio -- dropping him into the situation just went sideways. He didn't fit in anywhere in Israel, even his own office, he usually kills or arrests most of the people he spent weeks or months with. At that attrition rate, it's hard to keep a long term friendship going. And he's a goy in the middle of Mossad ... who's dating him? Who's socializing with him?

Yes, when you're a spy, you can have plenty of friends, as long as you don't talk about work. But what do you do when you're entire life revolves around methods and operations, dates and locations? There isn't a lot to talk about that isn't already classified.

And then I started considering how much the character of Scott Murphy fit with the end product in the novel.  Despite all of the new things I discovered about his character, and the more his past has developed in front of me, the puzzle pieces of his life still fit together.

I've worked on this so long
I actually made this for MySpace.
Think about that.

Of course, parts of this were me working backwards from the end result. The Scott Murphy of my novel is smart enough to never need a gun, avoid every firefight, and plan in such a way that his plans are the weapon. So why shouldn't he have skipped a year or two of school? And if you're a workaholic, who had finished college courses in high school, college is not that difficult with a full courseload during every possible session. And being a workaholic is a good survival trait—the harder he works, the faster he could get out into the real world. Why? Because Scott had never been described as “attractive” in any physical sense, so he's isolated by looks, by youth, and by intellect (I know something about two out of three of them); the real world had more options for him than school. The faster he went through school and started reality, the better.

So, making him younger fit in with the character. He was able to join Mossad after 9-11 to become the first member of the Goyim Brigade, and still stay in his twenties by the time A Pius Man happens.

By the time of A Pius Man, Scott Murphy will have been a spy for years. He is isolated from the outside world by being a spy. He's isolated from the Mossad community by being a goy. His work will be his life.

And then, one day he gets called to Rome … And then the fun starts.

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The Love at First Bite series.