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In the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew training along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas released from burning materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect too died in the fire and was not able to defend the accusations, the full truth about the disaster stayed hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the blaze was probably started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in search of him, the character finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the burdens of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may stem from a poor investment made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book opens 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 supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches 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 sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually emerges of a woman who experiences quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to conform with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've set for it, there are two outcomes: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of verses to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous UK readers of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of putting profit over people. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze on board the ferry and the chain of fraudulent business deals that ended in multiple deaths are a ominous background element, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet projecting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Certain readers may doubt how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply bound into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a political act. I will continue to follow this series, no matter where it leads.