Liffey Rivers and the Mystery of the Winking Judge

There is more intrigue at the National Portrait Gallery in London than 13-year-old Irish dancer Liffey Rivers could have ever imagined How will she tell the smug-looking security guard in the museum that she has discovered there is something WRONG with the Coronation Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I hanging in the Tudor Gallery? And how can she even pretend she is ready to dance next week at an Irish dance competition (feis) in County Sligo, Ireland? And WHY is the judge at the Beltra Feis winking at everyone? Irish dance adjudicators are forbidden to interact with dancers even after the competitions are over. Liffey is certain she has seen those fish-like, dead eyes before...

Brenna Briggs is the author of eight Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mysteries and MAIDS: Mothers Addicted To Irish Dancing. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, into a third generation Irish American family, she thought that eating green-dyed bakery bread and sugar cookies with bright green icing on Saint Patrick’s Day were the best things about being Irish. Briggs’ essays and short stories have been featured in Hornpipe Magazine, The Irish American Post, Celtic Canada, The Sligo Quarterly Review, Irish Dancing and Culture Magazine and many other Irish American periodicals and newspapers. After returning in 2009 from a six year stay in County Sligo where she wrote the first three Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer mysteries, she lives in the ＂Driftless Area＂ of Wisconsin near the Mississippi River. Her books and magazine short stories and essays are part of the Dublin archives for traditional Irish music and dance (Taisce Cheol Duchais Eirreann) on Merrion Square. Brenna studied theatre and history at St. Mary’s College-Notre Dame.