On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.

It was an extraordinary news story.

The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,

mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.

One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for Lucan.

It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime.

I'm Alex von Tundselman.

This is The Lucan Obsession.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Ah, ah! BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Welcome to a broadcasting house transformed through the sorcery of the BBC Sound Effects Library into a cluttered study high in the medieval tower of an ancient university college.

Outside the trees are thrashing and rain spatters the leaded windows, but in here the fire crackles

and our minds are occupied by a tantalizing question. Just what is dark academia and why does it seem to be everywhere at the moment?

We'll try to penetrate to the heart of that mystery later

with the help of Kate Weinberg and R.F. Kwong.

But first I speak to an author whose debut novel has been branded

as a prime example of the trend.

The Cloisters by Katie Hayes tells the story of an art history grad student

who becomes mired in a world of murder, museums and occult ritual.

When I spoke to Katie, I began by asking,

what brings her ambitious young heroine Anne from small town Walla Walla in Washington State to New York City?

...