The Devil Book by Asta Olivia Nordenhof review a Danish series that burns with purpose

"At about 2am on the night of 7 April 1990, a fire broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate staff training coupled with jammed fire doors aiding the spread of the fire and the subsequent release of deadly hydrogen cyanide gas from burning laminates resulted in the deaths of 159 people."

"The disaster was initially blamed on one of the passengers a lorry driver and convicted arsonist. The fact that this suspect was also one of the fire's casualties and thus unable to refute the charges against him was almost certainly part of the reason why the truth about the tragedy took so long to come to light. In 2020, a six-hour documentary revealed that the fire had most likely been started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud."

"In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is travelling on a bus through Copenhagen when she finds her attention drawn to an elderly man on the street outside. As the bus moves away, she has the eerie sense that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to travel the same route again in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is at once alien and deeply familiar."

A fire aboard the MS Scandinavian Star on 7 April 1990 resulted in 159 deaths after inadequate staff training, jammed fire doors, and release of hydrogen cyanide from burning laminates. Initial blame fell on a passenger, a lorry driver and convicted arsonist who also died in the blaze, delaying accountability. A 2020 documentary indicated the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud. The linked fiction begins with an unnamed narrator drawn to an elderly man, follows strained relationships between characters Maggie and Kurt, and focuses on a figure known as T whose actions connect to the fire.

Read at www.theguardian.com