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.

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Today we ask ourselves what words really mean, how to make them good and whether we can ever tell the story of who someone truly is.

We start with a man whose literary career now spans over 40 years. Julian Barnes has won the Booker, been shortlisted three times, and is viewed by

many as one of our greatest living authors. His latest novel, Elizabeth Finch, is part fiction, part

philosophical meditation, and, just when you least expect it, a semi-historical essay on the last

pagan Roman emperor. But it's also a very Barnes-esque plea

for closer examination, both of ourselves and the status quo. Readers might recognise the narrator

Neil as an archetype from Barnes' previous novels, The Only Story and the Sense of an Ending,

a moderately intelligent man, beguiled by a clever, older woman.

Neil is a mature student entranced by his tutor, the titular Elizabeth Finch,

and her sharp questioning mind.

When she dies and bequeathes her notebooks to him,

Neil begins his own investigation into who she really was with unexpected results.

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