Books in The Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mysteries series

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...

13-year-old Liffey Rivers is power-walking around the hotel lobby at the Celtic Arch Feis in St. Louis when she notices a suspicious looking man carrying a beautiful Irish dancer doll in his plastic shopping bag. An over-sized sparkling diamond tiara is perched on top of the doll's curly brown wig--but Liffey can see that the doll is wearing a traditional Irish dance school dress. Intuitively, she realizes that whoever put this dress on the doll, did NOT place the diamond crown on its head. When Liffey cannot resist investigating further, she finds herself not only trying to win a 1st place medal to qualify for her first Irish dance solo dress, but also dodging international smugglers. After a series of suspenseful cat and mouse chases, Liffey Rivers unravels the mystery of the sparkling solo dress crown.

The ancient Irish believed that people were affected by the cycles of the moon and that the moon had real power over the deeds of men. After dancing at an Irish dancing competition (feis) in Beltra, County Sligo, Ireland, 13-year-old Irish dancer Liffey Rivers experiences an extraordinary phenomenon directly above Queen Maeve's cairn on the summit of Knocknarea (the Mountain of the Moon). Soon after this paranormal event, Liffey finds herself seeking answers to life and death questions as she desperately searches on the mountain for a mysterious woman who wears a diamond 'M.'

Four Mini Mysteries is the only collection of the Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mysteries in short story form. These Liffey Rivers short mysteries were originally published as serialized, monthly installments in Irish Dancing and Culture Magazine when it was published in England. In "The Mystery of the Missing Novice," Liffey discovers that there are two unrelated young dancers at an Irish dance competition (feis) who look like identical twins. When one of them goes missing, Liffey's intuition and attention to detail bring about the safe return of the missing novice. In "The Case of the Clumsy Clowns," Liffey suspects that a group of klutzy clowns performing at a local church, billing themselves as 'The Joyful Jesters,' might be up to something more than entertaining their audience. “The Mystery of the Temporary Trophy,” finds Liffey at a feis in New York with her flaky Aunt Jean who is suffering from Post Traumatic Bling Syndrome. Liffey observes that one of the perpetual trophies to be awarded at this feis looks suspiciously like the ancient Derrynaflan Chalice she has seen before in a Dublin museum. In “The Werewolves of Ossory,” Liffey rescues a dancer from Ireland who has traveled alone to the Seattle Halloween Feis burdened with a centuries old family curse.

An exhausted Liffey Rivers is miles above the earth, en route to Amsterdam from South Africa. She is grateful to be alive after several almost deadly encounters with black mamba snakes and is very relieved that her harrowing experiences earlier that day at the Johannesburg Feis are finally over. However, she soon notices that there is a man on the plane walking slowly down the aisle, wearing the same exotic Italian leather shoes worn by a delivery man during her lunch break earlier that day. When Liffey eagerly opened the gift basket, a lethal black mamba snake reared up hissing, ready to attack. Although she had not been able to see the delivery man's face because of his over-sized sunglasses, she had noticed the unusual shoes he was wearing. Liffey is certain these designer shoes are not a coincidence and that the same would-be delivery assassin is now on this plane to finish what the snake in the basket had failed do. Paralyzed with fear, she tries unsuccessfully to rouse the sleeping detective her father had hired to protect her on her way back to the U.S. but soon realizes that the shoe man has struck again and that the detective is apparently drugged and unconscious! Sick with fear, realizing that she is trapped miles above the earth, she must once again employ her Irish dance training to save her life and the life of her unconscious bodyguard. Months later, she takes an idyllic Alaskan cruise with her family and best friend from Ireland, Sinead McGowan. Their cruise itinerary includes, in addition to exciting ship to shore excursions, her first boyfriend and an Irish dance competition in Anchorage, Alaska. Liffey Rivers sets sail, never expecting that she is heading to a rendezvous with her worst enemy on the desolate shores of the Arctic Ocean.

Liffey Rivers' world is changed forever when she begins meditating daily on her yoga mat between the two old ginkgo trees in her backyard. Voices coming from underneath her, earth tremors, the discovery of an ancient Native American effigy, a mysterious Catholic nun in a white habit floating above her like wispy smoke from a chimney. Almost extinct box turtles are in her yard everyday and there is a mysterious air quality problem in Mineral Point with no apparent cause. When high school students are terrorized by what appears to be a vampire, waiting for their school bus early one morning, the Chief of Police becomes involved and discovers that a threatening poem, a box turtle and a warning of retribution written in Japanese, has been deposited in The Foundry Books' pagoda-like haiku box on the bookstore's front porch. Liffey Rivers soon realizes that she is facing an unimaginable crisis in what has, up until now, been a safe place to live and hide.

13-year-old Irish dancer Liffey Rivers is on safari in South Africa with her eccentric Aunt Jean, en route to an Irish dancing competition in Johannesburg. After dodging a charging rhino, fending off a pride of lions and re-routing an enraged mother elephant, Liffey's problems have just begun. When Liffey is confronted by a deadly Black Mamba snake in the tall savanna grasses, she must rely on instinct and her Irish dance training to survive. At the Johannesburg Feis, Liffey's troubles continue and she again finds herself, this time with a little boy in a wheelchair, in the shadow of the serpent.

In Book #6 of the Liffey Rivers Irish Dancer Mystery Series, 14-year-old Irish dancer Liffey Rivers sets out during a freak November 1st blizzard in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, to help a friend decipher a mysterious puzzle that may lead to an undiscovered gold mine. When a blast of frigid wind deposits a huge pile of snow in her path, Liffey uses her Irish dancing training to launch herself over it and discovers that High Street has two sides: a Gray Dog Deli side and a Red Rooster Cafe side. Same direction. Very different paths.The Mystery of the Pointing Dog is Wisconsin historical fiction for tweens set in 1842. Featuring an Irish immigrant family which has settled in Southwestern Wisconsin, it is also Liffey Rivers’ most challenging and dangerous mystery to date.