Desiring to recover his lost reputation, he writes a half-heartedly apologetic letter to a newspaper and returns home; but is under official investigation and meets derision at best and violence at worst from society at large, and only dares to go out of his house in disguise.

Seeing an author holding forth in the cafe Súfistinn about his part in the Kitchenware Revolution, Starkaður Leví envies his popularity and starts stealing volumes of his diary and reading them.

The author turns out to be Almar Logi Almarsson and recently to have abruptly left his wife Hildur and son Bjartur, living in New York, to return to Iceland; he is world-weary and has writer's block.

She takes Starkaður to an opulent estate far from Iceland, later known as Ginnungagap, where he meets the company's director, a psychoanalyst called Salómon Epstein (or just the Doctor) and his assistant (and, it later emerges, son) Clark.

Rita proceeds to contact Almar Logi offering to publish his book Demón Café in English, and investigates his life by talking to Hildur (who turns out to be part of the team developing the prosecution case against Starkaður).

Arnar Eggert Thoroddsen from SunnudagsMogginn noted that the "incredible scenario… dances at the boundaries of science fiction and James Bond's film".