In a post on CrimeReads, Karen Odden says that historical mysteries can provide your reader with more than pure escapism. “While I never intend to write a novel with a “Message,” I find (often belatedly) that by diving deep into the unevenness and injustices in Victorian culture, I have inadvertently placed a fraught issue from my own world at the core of a mystery,” she says.
Odden suggests that the temporal distance between the world of your novel and the present can allow you to explore themes that might be difficult to portray in a modern setting without seeming preachy. “On this fresh ground, both authors and readers can set aside present-day ideas and the associated (often charged) feelings and examine a societal challenge, a response, and the psychological tendencies that underpin that response from a fresh perspective, to imagine some alternatives that are potentially kinder, more grounded in empathy, and less divisive,” she explains.
For example, in her novel, Under a Veiled Moon, Odden examines racism through the lens of English bigotry towards the Irish. She also uses the 1,000 newspapers of 19th century London as a stand-in for modern social media. “As they do today, the newspapers produce narratives that shape public perception,” Odden says. “In my book, a malevolent group organizes the publication of fearmongering hints and rumors about the Irish Republican Brotherhood across several newspapers. Taken together, the newspapers reinforce each other’s false narratives, and the repetition has the effect of making the rumors seem like a single, straightforward truth.”
