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 Fondanzlement.

This is The Lucan Obsession.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello. On today's open book, Graham Norton, the man most of us know as an extroverted talk show host, on his somewhat more introverted double life as an author, as we discuss his fifth novel, a sweeping tale of love, tragedy and friendship that moves through the latter half of the 20th century.

And later we'll be looking at a new online initiative that buys back your old book

so you can buy new ones in the hope of helping readers, indie bookshops and the environment.

First though, Graham Norton is one of the most recognisable faces on TV,

known for his fresh and quick-witted conversations with everyone from Tom Cruise to Madonna.

He somewhat blindsided us all then, with his writing debut in 2016, the crime novel Holding,

which won an on-post Irish book award. And now he's back with his fifth and perhaps most

ambitious book, Frankie. It's the story of the eponymous character, a woman in her 80s,

as she recounts her life story to her carer, Damien. The novel then whisks us from West Cork to the bright lights of

London and the glamorous art and restaurant worlds of 70s and 80s New York at the start of the AIDS

epidemic. But the thread running through it all is Frankie's lifelong friendship with a schoolmate

Nora,

...