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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the propagation of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect also died in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the full truth about the disaster remained concealed for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive investigation disclosed the fire was likely set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer explains her challenge to compose T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale gradually emerges of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she accepted an offer from a man who professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic dedication to writing as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a beast.” A third way out is finally revealed through a series of poems to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Many British readers of Nordenhof's series books will think immediately of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the fire on board the ferry and the series of deceptive transactions that ended in multiple deaths are a sinister underlying presence, revealing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or implication yet casting a growing influence over all that occurs. Certain readers may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and meaning are so deeply bound into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I intend to continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.