9781787335189 by Smakprov Media AB

‘Nordenhof’s writing is electrifying’

‘Startling and irresistible’

The Devil Book

also by asta olivia nordenhof

Money to Burn

The Devil Book

Translated from the Danish by Caroline Waight

J ONA THAN CA PE

Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Vintage, is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies

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First published in Great Britain with the title The Devil Book by Jonathan Cape in 2025

First published in Denmark with the title Djævlebogen by Gads Forlag in 2023

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Four

1st Attempt

2nd Attempt

3rd Attempt

4th Attempt

Foreword

LOLLAND

, 6 November 2022

Readers of volume 1 in this series will remember that the story ended with a call from Copenhagen it was T ringing T the businessman who had plans to start a shipping corporation and was trying to ﬁnd investors in this volume, II, we were supposed to follow him from childhood up until the night when he sat waiting for the news that the ﬁre on the Scandinavian Star

had successfully been set I wrote three versions of that book and hated every one what was I doing in that man’s head there was nothing to be found there if I say that he like others is prepared to kill for proﬁt then I’ve said of him what there is to be said and can content myself with adding: yes he was a person too he had a phone with a very long antenna and a mother whose lifelong pain was that she’d given birth to him

so I had to put the owner in the grave and instead begin to try to ﬁnd the father of the modern businessman this happened just as the pandemic was called oﬀ for the third time planes returning to the sky it made me so angry who I asked who has persuaded us that happiness is doing the impossible it was the genius the lunatic the original burner of forests so the fourth book I wrote was about Christopher Columbus he sailed of course across the Atlantic

could barely keep a salted sardine down for sheer excitement over this potentially wildly lucrative contract and the trade winds they were his ﬂuke scoop the trade winds brought him and his rotting ship led them to another world where he tramped around in heavy Spanish boots and wondered what a colourful bird might go for on the European market since it had never been sold before so he began to murder kidnap kids put people up for sale but don’t think he took pleasure in it no, it was a tremendous bother really, he simply calculated it might

pay oﬀ

500 years later the Scandinavian Star arose in the middle of the Caribbean Sea the sails replaced by a large hot engine she was a ﬂoating casino for the white American middle class then she was bought by a Dane sailed back across the Atlantic set alight but that manuscript I also hated believe me when I tell you I practically threw up every time I opened the document in such cases when you’ve lost yourself when with ﬁerce disdain you force yourself to read yet another biography of Columbus or another article about a shipowner who got away

with murder in cases such as those you’ve got to ask yourself what was my motto again?

my motto which I had forgotten in my struggle to write a proper book about the inner life of great men my motto is as follows it’s a simple one and good: fuck men! when I came to think about it

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 there are