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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew training along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this suspect too died in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the complete truth regarding the disaster stayed concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation revealed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that book, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to write T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to follow him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a form of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a figure who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure further harm. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Many UK audience members of the author's series books will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be linked at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these first two books of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze aboard the ship and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background element, revealing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or implication yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how much it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly innovative writing whose moral and creative purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic devotion to writing as a political act. I will continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.