Pack Up the Moon
A Novel
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
After five extraordinarily moving mysteries, Mary Anne Kelly turns to a touching and charming novel filled with true-to-life characters and deep emotion.
At the start, Claire Breslinsky is in Munich working as a model. She rents a room in a large apartment and meets a series of magical people---or so they seem to her. Isolde, her landlady and sister model, introduces her to a number of people, including Germany's leading movie star, a noted film photographer, a doctor whose popularity with the opposite sex matches his medical skills, and many more. It's a dream for Claire, who fled her home in Queens because of its constant reminders of her cop brother's death.
At a wine-soaked dinner party in Isolde's flat, it is noisily agreed that the odd assortment of friends will drive a string of caravans to India, taking photographs and filming along the way for a documentary that will eventually pay for the trip. And so the trek begins--during which Claire learns a good bit about India and a great deal more about men, women, and the voyages of the heart.
Mary Anne Kelly has been praised for bringing her characters to life. It's a skill that she uses to tremendous advantage in this wonderful new adventure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kelly breaks out of the mystery mold with an early view of heroine Claire Breslinsky in this middling prequel to Foxglove, The Cordelia Squad and the other Breslinsky novels. Barely 20 and short on cash, Claire finds modeling work in Germany in 1972 after disappointing stints in Paris and Milan. She makes friends with Isolde, a lovably wicked older model who introduces Claire to European eccentrics and socialites. One evening's tipsy dinner party conversation inspires an ambitious overland expedition to India. Among the travelers are the charming Dr. Blacky von Osterwald and Tupelo Honig, the glamorous actress who vies with Claire for Blacky's affection as the caravan drives through Germany, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan and meets with the danger and beauty of the Middle East before arriving in India. Kelly paints a vivid portrait of 1970s India, but overripe prose ("And what had taught me to be so expert at an art of which I knew nothing?"), clunky dialogue and a listless plot limit potential.