Richard Osman, famous for his Thursday Murder Club series of novels and for co-presenting the long-running TV quiz show "Pointless," had already referenced Estonia, on the grounds that it seemed to him a relatively obscure nation, but on meeting translator Bibi Raid, he said he would continue this new tradition.

Raid said the meeting had happened in 2022 at a closed gathering on the sidelines of the London Book Fair.

An employee of Estonian publishing house Rahva Raamat at the time, Raid was keen to translate into Estonian and publish Osman's debut, "The Thursday Murder Club," as soon as possible, adding "it had something special" and that the company had snapped up the Estonian rights as soon as they could.

The book turned out to be a bestseller and spawned a series – with the fifth installment due to publish next year – and its attraction to Raid was also a sense of bleak humor shared between the two countries.

Osman was by that time working on book three in the series when he made his pledge, which came good – The Bullet That Missed contains a reference to "a purple and gold helicopter for sale in Estonia," which the villain of the piece felt would be a good use for some ill-gotten gains.

Despite the notorious British stag parties which used to be a regular weekend feature of Tallinn's Old Town back in the 2000s, Estonia had remained relatively off the beaten path, from a British perspective, which was also an added reason for referencing it.

Two other things stood out for Raid: 1) just how tall Osman is, even by Estonian standards, at nearly two meters (about 6 foot 6 inches), and 2) how popular he is in the UK.

"For years, he hosted TV shows and game shows that consistently ranked among the top ten in viewership," Raid noted.

Even with the commonalities, Raid said that accurately translating humorous references which would hit home in Estonian but retain their original meaning had been one of the biggest challenges.

Osman, 53, first entered the public spotlight as a co-host of the idiosyncratic general knowledge-based quiz show "Pointless," a role he held from 2009 to 2022.

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