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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness along with jammed fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas released from combusting materials led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect too perished in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the complete truth about the event remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation disclosed the blaze was likely set deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is riding on a public transport through Copenhagen when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the root of the character's disaffection may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment opens with an extended poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and over the course of 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 evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic dedication to writing as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally revealed through a series of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Many British readers of the author's series books will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these first two books of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the fire on board the ferry and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or inference yet casting a deepening influence over everything that transpires. Certain readers may question how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent work, when its aim and meaning are so deeply bound into a broader whole whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose moral and artistic purpose are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive commitment to the craft as a political act. I will persist to pursue this series, wherever it leads.