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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN num: 9780451410894
ISBN number: 0451410890
Label: Onyx
Manufacturer: Onyx
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 320
Printing Date: January 06, 2004
Publishing house: Onyx
Release Date: January 06, 2004
Sale Popularity Level: 99532
Studio: Onyx
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
Third in the bestselling series from 'one of the established masters of the genre' (Newsweek). Scotland Yard's Richard Jury solves a bizarre murder in an even stranger town-and follows a treasure map to yet another chilling crime...
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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The series could use ore dynamic character development between the main characters. It's interesting at first, but as the characters only threaten to change, but never do, after a while it get's dull.
Rated by buyers 
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Anodyne Necklace.
This is the third novel in the Richard Jury of Scotland Yard detective series. The very first novel in the series is Man With a Load of Mischief and the second is Old Fox Deceived. Each book in this long running series is named after an actual pub in Great Britain.
The character development is the best feature of this book, with my favorite character being Melrose Plant, oft-put-upon by his thoroughly nasty aunt by marriage, Lady Agatha Ardry.
Melrose gave up his title as Lord Ardry, still lives in his family's ancestral manor, Ardry End, and he doesn't stop his aunt from blatantly pilfering treasures from his home.
Oh yes, there is a murder, of a young lady whose fingers are cut off. Another young girl is knocked on the head as she plays violin in a subway station, and she is in a coma. Someone has crafted a treasure map, and a very valuable emerald has been stolen.
Get busy, Richard Jury and volunteer detective Melrose Plant, and solve this case!
Rated by buyers 
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The Anodyne Necklace,by Martha Grimes, is actually the third book in this great series. This book introduces a recurring character by the name of Polly Praed. She will become one of the primary love interests of Melrose Plant. Ms. Grimes is in excellent evocative form in this novel which features multiple murders and a clue - a necklace. There are a bunch of eclectic characters in this one. This is a solid 4 star read.
If you are new to the series, than congratulations... you have found an excellent series by a very witty and gifted author. For those of you new to the series, here are the books in order:
The Man with a Load of Mischief
The Old Fox Deceived
The Anodyne Necklace
The Dirty Duck
Jerusalem Inn
Help the Poor Struggler
The Deer Leap
I am the only Running Footman
The Five Bells and Bladebone
The Old Silent
The Old Contemptibles
The Horse You Came In on
Rainbow's End
The Case has Altered
The Stargazey
The Lamorna Wink
The Blue Last
The Grave Maurice
The Winds of Change
The Old Wine Shades
Dust
Rated by buyers -
Katie O'Brien plays the violin at a tube station to earn money for fashionable clothes. Playing a theme from EVITA she is hit on the back of the head. Racer calls to tell Jury he is going to go to Hertford, not Northants, for the weekend. The reader finds Melrose Plant drinking shooting sherry with his aunt, Agatha Ardry, as he tries to sneak off to join Jury in the murder investigation. It seems that a sort of bird watching fanatic, Ernestine Craigie, has spotted the dead body looking through her binoculars. The body of the murder victim rests in the vicinity of an overgrown public footpath in the Horndean woods.
The violinist ends up in the hospital in a coma. She is the daughter of the female publican of the village, Mary O'Brien. The pub is called the Bold Blue Boy. The identity of the homicide victim is Cora Binns. There are connections. The girl in a coma comes from the village where Cora Binns's body is discovered. She was playing at the tube station, Wembley Knotts, from which Cora Binns departed to travel to Littlebourne. After a far amount of dithering, Melrose Plant and Richard Jury meet up at the pub, the Bold Blue Boy. It is learned that the girl in the coma, Katie, gave a child a book just in case. The child, Emily, gives the book to Melrose Plant.
Then there is another incident occurring at a village fete. It seems the two homicide victims worked at the same secretarial agency. A valuable necklace, stolen previously from one of the inhabitants of Littlebourne, is discovered in a crevice at the Wembley Knotts Underground Station. Katie dies. Her violin teacher plays Pavanne for a Dead Princess at the site, the station. There is a sting operation resulting in the capture of the wrongdoer.
Polly Praed and Jenny Kennington are minor characters in this adventure. The title, of course, is the name of another pub having significance to the mystery and neatly coinciding, (necklace=necklace), with one of the clues to the three deaths.
Rated by buyers -
I am looking at the January 2004 Reissue by Onyx. The original copyright is 1983, so don't be surprised by the reference to Princess Di. The settings for the novel are London and the small suburban town of Littlebourne. The Anodyne Necklace is the name of a working class pub in London.
The storyline is interesting, with a mugging and a couple of murders that have to be drawn together. The story revolves around a valuable stolen emerald, set into a necklace. The thief, who had been a trusted personal secretary to the moderately wealthy owner, was killed in an accident shortly after the theft. He left a clue to the location where he concealed the jewelry, but the clue itself became concealed.
Now it is a year later. People who might have knowledge about the necklace are being assaulted and killed. There appears to be an unknown accomplice to the theft. Richard Jury and Melrose Plant track down the information, and leads take them in various directions, including a Wizards snd Warriors game. It seems that the deceased thief was a master of the game, and the clue seems to be in a game map.
The plot is complex and seems, perhaps, to be overly contrived in places. The author seems to have a fixation on flashers (they have shown up in other novels), and in this novel we have Ash the Flash and his young son, Friendly. The flashers seem peripheral to the main plot.
The novel has a surprise ending when the identity of the accomplice is revealed. It is not great literature, but provides an interesting whodunit for light reading.
A previous reviewer is incorrect in stating that this is the very first novel in the Jury/Plant series. The very first novel in the series is "The Man with a Load of Mischief." I believe that this is the third novel in the series (there is a Listmania listing available, prepared by a different reviewer). A local bookseller has recently stocked the full series, so I believe the full series has been reissued.
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