Excerpt from HAUNTED HULA-WEEN by Sally J. Smith:
A motion sensor mounted high on the side of the building blazed light over a twenty-foot radius, and half a second later, an alarm—not subtle, not polite, a full-throated mechanical shriek—split the fog wide open and sent something in the cane startling away in a burst of sound and movement.
Somewhere on the other side of the building, Grady Roosevelt yelled, “What the—”
I didn’t hang around to hear the rest. I was already running.
And there it was, open ground. Beautiful, flat, open ground, and the road beyond it, and Brute’s familiar shape dark against the roadside. Something like pure joy surged in me, and tears streamed down my face.
I ran as fast as my exhausted legs would carry me, the alarm still shrieking behind me, the motion light flooding out across the field, and for a moment—just a moment—I thought I’d done it.
But I hadn’t.
He’d come around the other side of the mill. He was a killer with longer legs and more lung capacity. The alarm hadn’t stopped him, and now he was on level, open ground, too, and gaining, and Brute was still a hundred yards away. Things looked bad.
I ran anyway.
That’s the thing about running for your life. You don’t stop, no matter what. Because it’s your life. You run because the alternative doesn’t work, and you pray, and you watch the safety coming closer by the yard… and you listen to the footsteps behind you getting closer too.
The breath coming from my screaming lungs made me sound like an old, wheezy set of bagpipes.
My heart was a taiko drum thundering in my chest.
My legs stopped listening to demands and began to lift less high and pump more slowly.
Behind me, the footsteps closed the gap.
And then something smashed into me, and the ground came up and took me.
Excerpt from HAUNTED HULA-WEEN by Sally J. Smith, © 2026, Used by permission.
HAUNTED HULA-WEEN by Sally J. Smith
From USA Today bestselling author Sally J. Smith comes a haunted Halloween homicide!
One bogus ticket fiasco. One scammer taking a deep dive in the bobbing for apples tub. One very exasperated travel agent who knew she was getting too old for rock concerts.
It’s the spookiest time of year at Aloha Lagoon, and travel agent turned reluctant sleuth Gabby LeClair is up to her pixie cut in trouble!
Global pop superstar Echo Celeste has descended on Kauai to debut her My Haunted Heart album. But the concert of the decade goes south when it’s discovered that hundreds of furious fans bought bogus tickets, and it was Julie, Gabby’s guy Rick’s “little sister,” who sold those tickets.
Megastar Echo is devastated for her fans and wants to make things right. To do it, Gabby pulls off a Halloween miracle: a private Apology Shindig for the defrauded fans to take place at a crumbling, legend‑haunted sugar mill and plantation. But before Echo can even perform, a scream cuts through the night—and the woman found floating in the apple‑bobbing tub is none other than the con artist behind the ticket scam.
Now Detective Ray is circling Julie like a shark, and Gabby finds herself in the middle of yet another murder to solve. With her team at her side, she digs into a tale of fraud, grief, and revenge that stretches far beyond the islands.
It’s Halloween in the islands, and the fire goddess Pele may be wandering the cane fields where one very determined sleuth is all that stands between a killer and his next victim. But if Gabby isn’t careful, she might just be the next one bobbing for trouble!
Mystery | Holiday [ Gemma Halliday Publishing, On Sale: September 29, 2026, e-Book, ISBN: 2940196363474 / ]
A Celebrity Concert Leads to a Very Murderous Halloween
A Tropical Concert, Bogus Tickets, and Murder in Aloha Lagoon
Buy HAUNTED HULA-WEEN: Kindle | BN.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Sally J. Smith
USA Today bestselling author Sally J. Smith is the co-writer of mystery and detective novels and a contributor to the Aloha Lagoon Mystery series. She also works as a freelance fiction editor—because apparently, obsessing over stories in just one way isn’t enough. She calls the desert Southwest home, where she lives with her family and one very lovable pup. Get in touch via her website email.
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