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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate staff preparedness combined with malfunctioning safety doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this suspect also died in the fire and was unable to defend the accusations, the full truth about the disaster remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

In the initial book of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the source of the character's discontent may originate in a disastrous investment made on his account by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to compose T's story. “Within this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a form 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 tale slowly unfolds of a woman who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those days relates to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil 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 begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: a passionate, compelling dedication to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was marred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled 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 Reality

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think immediately of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, shares parallels in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze on board the ferry and the chain of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or inference yet casting a deepening influence over all that transpires. Some readers may question how far it is feasible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I include myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly experimental literature whose moral and artistic intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic commitment to writing as a statement. I intend to persist to pursue this series, wherever it goes.