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In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training along with jammed fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting materials led to the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this individual also died in the incident and was not able to defend himself, the full truth about the disaster remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the blaze was probably set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer explains her challenge to compose T's story. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a form of allegory. “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 tale gradually emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and over the course of those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative comes finally to light—the account of a young woman whose early years was marred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are also a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Many UK readers of the author's series books will think immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or inference yet casting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain individuals may question how much it is possible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and significance are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as text, as truly experimental literature whose moral and artistic intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act. I will continue to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.