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 Fondunzelman.

This is The Lucan Obsession.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello, today on the programme, I'm talking to the novelist Ian McEwan.

In an interview recorded prior to Thursday's news, we'll be discussing his new novel Lessons,

which follows one man's life from the 1950s to the present day in what is now a poignant

mirroring of the Queen's Long Rain.

A chronicler of modern Britain over the course of his 18 novels

from the Cement Garden and Black Dogs to Amsterdam,

winner of the 1998 Booker Prize,

and Atonement, which has sold more than 2 million copies,

McEwen has developed one of the more significant bodies of work in contemporary literature.

Lessons opens at a boarding school in 1959 when a 20-something female piano teacher

pinches the leg of an 11-year-old boy, Roland, and follows that with a kiss.

These abusive acts prompt Roland to avoid Miriam Cornell, but three years later, terrified that the Cuban missile crisis might mean the end of everything, he presents himself at her door and begins a passionate and damaging relationship.

...