I try to identify a theme for my novels. The most recent theme was racism, in particular, anti-semitism. As a writer of historical fiction inevitably the themes are inspired by historical events. On 22nd of August 1614 a well documented event took place in Frankfurt, an act of violent anti-semitism known as the XXXXXXXXX Uprising. Hey, you can google it you like, spoiler alert, he’s the murderer in Called to Account, the fourth book in the Sir Anthony Standen Adventures.
My first book, The Spy who Sank the Armada was biographical in nature, so there was no specific theme. Fire and Earth has the conflict between faith and reason at its heart. The Suggested Assassin explores misogyny, and as already stated Called to Account looks at racism. My fifth book has the working title The Favourite Murder, and explores favouritism and the parent child relationship.
Misogyny and racism are words representing conflict, whereas the phrase “conflict between faith and reason” is my way of describing the conflict that arose between science and religion, when science found that the Earth revolved around the Sun rather than the other way around. However I could also argue that racism is a conflict between faith and reason. Hitler tried hard to use science to prove that the Aryan race were superior to others, Jesse Owens proved him wrong, by winning a race ironically.
I can see no logical reason for racism, its tribalism, us against them. The word race, in an ancestry sense, comes from Italian razza meaning of doubtful origin. I believe the origin of the human race has been identified as central Africa from where, when the Red Sea dried out for a while, we started migrating around the world. Our level of melanin and our physical differences were adaptions to our environment.