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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating fire broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with jammed safety doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas released from burning materials led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Given that this suspect also perished in the fire and was unable to refute the accusations, the full truth regarding the event remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey 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 pressures of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root of the character's discontent may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an extended poetic passage in which the writer explains her struggle to write T's narrative. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a type of parable. “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 businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a woman who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those days tells to him what happened to her a decade before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, magnetic dedication to writing as a form of activism

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or remain a monster.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a collection of verses to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Many UK readers of the author's Scandinavian Star books will reflect immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit over human lives. In these initial books of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire on board the ferry and the chain of fraudulent business deals that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Certain readers may question how much it is possible to read this volume as a independent piece, when its aim and meaning are so deeply bound into a larger whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic devotion to the craft as a statement. I intend to continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.