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.

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It was Charlie Chaplin who once wrote that,

Life is a Tragedy in Close Up, but accommodating Long Shot.

And today on Open Book, two canonical writers whose works grapple with human struggles of love and loss,

but never lose a wry sense of humour.

Later I'll be celebrating the centenary of Trinidadian writer Sam Selvon,

whose lyrical and often very funny novels are known as the foremost chronicle of the Windrush Generation.

But first, the multi-bucker prize-winning giant of literature, Margaret Atwood,

who despite a whirlwind few years, has returned as strong as ever with a collection of stories brimming with a trademark wit and poignancy.

Old Babes in the Wood is dedicated to her late husband, Graham Gibson, who sadly died just as a last work of fiction was published, the global sensation that was the Testaments.

When I spoke to Atwood, I began by asking what it was

like returning to short stories in this context. Well, you know, the Testaments was a very strange

launch because we did the launch. We did actually two launches, one of them in the bookstore

...