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.

What links W.H. Oden, Benjamin Zephaniah, Lee Child, Kit DeVall, J.R. Tolkien, Mark Billingham,

Fay Weldon, Jonathan Coe, David Lodge and Barbara Cartland.

If you haven't already guessed, aside from being a pretty wild dream dinner party of mine,

all the writers who have lived and worked in Birmingham, the multifaceted city whose literary life

I'll be exploring today on Open Book.

I'm currently standing outside St. Phillips, the cathedral which perhaps perfectly sums up Birmingham.

On the one hand, it's modest, unassuming even, yet inside, it's welcoming

and enchanting with its beautiful stained glass windows by the pre-Raphaelite Edward Bern Jones.

But I'm beginning my journey just across the street, somewhere a little less picturesque.

My name is Natalie Marlow and we're in Needless Alley, a small, steep alley in the centre of

Birmingham just off New Street and it's where I based my first novel.

Natalie, it's quite rare on Open Book to be able to stand in a place not only where the book's

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