Osolin sends Inspector Part undercover in politics

Olav Osolin’s third novel about Inspector Samuel Part takes him undercover in politics, blending crime fiction with humour, ERR reviewer Helen Pärk writes. In “The Duck Flies into Politics,” published by Varrak in 2026, Part is assigned a secret mission by the Security Police.

After solving murder cases in the first two books, Part has impressed his superiors and is promoted to senior inspector. They now task him with infiltrating the Estonian Liberal Union, a leading political party, to find out whether electronic voting can be rigged and, if so, how.

What begins as a spy story soon spirals out of Part’s control. He joins the party, carefully maintains his cover and spends a substantial budget on its election efforts. Before long, he has unexpectedly become one of its leading figures in organising the European Parliament election campaign and landed near the top of its candidate list. His new profile also attracts interest from rival parties.

Part’s cover is that he works as the marketing director of a major logistics company. That leads him to work with a media agency on the party’s campaign, despite knowing little about advertising. The agency’s hierarchy, job titles and jargon leave him confused, as do instructions from party headquarters and his Security Police handlers. At one point, he declares that he will not pay for “two people on one photocopier,” the review notes.

Osolin draws on his knowledge of media, marketing and advertising, while the novel’s humour also comes from wordplay and character names familiar from the earlier books. The story includes real people alongside fictional characters, and references to domestic television channels, popular programmes and their makers, from “Alo” to the election studio.

The 328-page novel is part of Osolin’s crime and suspense series about Part, whose political assignment again takes the story in an unexpected direction.