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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual too perished in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the complete truth about the event stayed concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the character finds herself in a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the source of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer describes her challenge to write T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were supposed / to follow him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a type of parable. “I came to think / 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 slowly unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she accepted an offer from a man who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic dedication to literature as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with social expectations or endure further harm. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of results: submit or stay a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous UK audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire on board the ferry and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background presence, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or implication yet projecting a deepening influence over all that occurs. Some readers may doubt how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly innovative literature whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I will persist to pursue this series, wherever it goes.