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In the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate staff training along with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas released from burning materials caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of arson. Given that this suspect too died in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the full facts about the event remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a poor investment made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment begins with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's story. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale 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 erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and during those days relates to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic dedication to literature as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose childhood was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are two results: surrender or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of the author's series books will think right away of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ship and the chain of deceptive business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in brief flashes of information or implication yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how far it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as properly experimental writing whose moral and artistic intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a statement. I will persist to follow this series, wherever it leads.