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 Fontunzelman. This is

the Lucan Obsession. Listen on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello. Today on Open Book, it's all about breaking barriers and transcending national borders.

Later on, we'll be celebrating English Pen, the campaigning organisation founded 100 years ago

to support the free expression of writers by talking to its president, Philippe Sanz,

and novelist Aleef Shafak about its continuing importance.

But first, Rabbi Alamedin was born in Jordan to Lebanese Drew's parents. He grew up in Kuwait

and Lebanon before finally settling in the US. His debut novel Kool-Aids published in 1998 explored

issues and geographies most close to him

by tackling the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and the Lebanese Civil War.

His fifth novel, An Unnecessary Woman, the story of a 72-year-old Beirutti book lover,

was his critical breakthrough and earned him a nomination for the National Book Award.

Alamedine's novels have always occupied unique ground, both serious and humorous, filled with

sex and death, they're intellectual, yet open-hearted, addressing the reader without ever pandering

to them. His latest novel, The Wrong End of the Telescope, is about a Lebanese doctor, Mina Simpson.

She arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, after being asked to help by a friend

who runs an NGO there.

The novel charts both the experience of the Syrian refugees, but also of Mina herself,

...