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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials led to the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect also died in the fire and was not able to refute himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster remained concealed for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the fire was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

Within the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the root of the character's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and over the course of those days tells to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose childhood was marred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: submit or stay a monster.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a series of verses to the night that are also a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's series books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the ensuing disaster and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain individuals may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent work, when its aim and significance are so intricately tied into a larger whole whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a statement. I will continue to follow this literary journey, wherever it goes.