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During the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training along with jammed safety doors aided the propagation of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect too perished in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the full truth regarding the disaster stayed concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was probably started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a public transport through Copenhagen when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their troubled pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type of allegory. “I came to think / 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 devil.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what happened to her a decade before, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the story of a young woman whose childhood was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are two outcomes: surrender or remain a beast.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Many British readers of Nordenhof's series books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit over human lives. In these first two books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the blaze aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive transactions that ended in mass murder are a sinister background presence, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or implication yet casting a growing influence over everything that transpires. Some readers may question how much it is feasible to read this volume as a independent work, when its aim and meaning are so deeply bound into a larger whole whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.