# Pretend you're with Prez Obama in Hawaii (aka MURDER IN WAIKIKI)



## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Walter Bing was almost a whole day dead. He faced the sun rising from the eastern Pacific, caught like a kite in mid-flight. He was crumpled in a flame tree, held aloft by broad branches, his left arm dangling and swinging in the constant gusts of wind channeled along the pali walls.

The flame tree basked while Bing naturally fermented in the tropical heat and humidity. The flame tree was full grown and flamboyantly in bloom. His work pants were the color of the branches, and his aloha shirt was the same scarlet and white as the blossoms that surrounded him.

His head was mashed against an errant off-shoot, a thumb-sized sucker that had impaled his cheek. Had he been alive when he crash-landed here, his neck would have twisted and snapped. But he was already dead meat cooling.

When he hit the flame tree, it had actually groaned from the impact. Not that he weighed that much--a middle-aged bantam-weight of a man--but he had hit at terminal velocity. The flame tree did lose some branches, but it was hardy and took the stress well. After all, not many trees could live halfway up the side of a thousand foot cliff on the lee side of the volcanic mountain range.

A honeybee walked his face, prowled his nostril, invaded his mouth, and investigated the sticky sweetness of his blood, the corruption of his body. Soon it was blown away by the gusty winds. New bees came and went.

Now and then the wind stiffened, the tree shook and swayed, Bing rocked in his cradle, old leaves and old blossoms blew off. But Bing's purchase was never threatened; he was wedged tightly. Small change slipped from Bing's pockets, and tumbled to the footpath three dozen feet below.

Bing, if alive, would have looked out on Kaneohe Bay in leeward Oahu. He'd have seen the bedroom community of Kailua. It was a lovely town of manicured lawns, suburban bungalows, choice quarter-acre lots, station wagons, and a very good high school football team. Bing knew the streets of Kailua well, better than most residents, yet he never lived there. He would've if he could've, but he never got the chance. But that's the trouble with murder; we die before our time.

Now he awaited his funeral and burial at the Chinese cemetery in Manoa.

A mynah bird landed near Bing, warbled to the world that this was the frontier of his territory, then caught the scent of dead man, and flew off in a hurry to another border post.

From the novel MURDER IN WAIKIKI, available at the Kindle Store. Less expensive writings are also available.

Click
here









Also available at smashwords.

Enjoy good writing tonight in the privacy of your home.

Best wishes,

Fred Zackel










_edit: fixed KB link_


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Hi Fred,

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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Wow! 44 people have read this little segment from the novel!

Thank you for taking the time out, folks!

Remember, only you can prevent poverty in my lifetime!

Best wishes and good luck to every Kindle author & owner.

Fred Zackel

And if you like the book, yes, you can review it!


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## Nancy C. Johnson Author (Apr 28, 2010)

Welcome aboard, Fred

Hope you enjoy it here. Keep posting and eventually you'll get to know everyone and they will know you. That's what works best. 

I'll give your book a real "look see" tomorrow. Heading to bed. It's late... but thought I would say hello first. And thanks for the best wishes... 

Really liked what I read so far.  

Best wishes to you too, Nancy


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Thank you, Nancy! I am greatful for your support and generosity.

Let me offer folks a snippet from the book's opening chapter.

Honolulu Homicide Detective Steven Ke'aloha Shaw pitied the dead man. "Poor bastard never even made it into his hotel. He gets off the plane, gets into a courtesy van going to his hotel, and he doesn't even get to check-in."
The Medical Examiner giggled. "He was dying to be in paradise."
Steve Shaw examined the body slumped against the window in the last seat. The victim was a young white man about Steve's age, tall and thin. A lean face and a square jaw and a high forehead. Beige hair that was receding quickly. Mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes, and his head was resting against the window. He had some faint acne scars. He wore a red flowered aloha shirt with a large bloodstain among the flowers. Flower leis decorated his chest. He could have been daydreaming or asleep or lost in his own thoughts.
The M.E. indicated an ice pick tucked between the two fresh flower leis the victim wore. "You'll notice it has the words Aloha from Hawaii embossed on the handle. A sharp jab under the ribcage and then upwards. It was over in an instant."
"The killer was right-handed?"
"He could be ambidextrous. That's good with either hand."
Steve asked the policewoman leaning over the middle seat, "You and your partner were the first ones on the scene, right?" He reached out to her. "Steve Shaw, by the way."
The policewoman said, "I'm Officer Ribeiro, and my partner's name is Torrey. Melissa Ribeiro," she added as an afterthought.
They shook hands, and she held on to his hand a moment longer than necessary. He saw the almost brazen look in her eyes, and knew she had already recognized him. Steve Shaw was the hero of Hotel Street; he had saved his partner's life. Although he didn't feel like a hero, he liked being recognized and all of the attention.
Steven Ke'aloha Shaw didn't look like a homicide investigator for the Honolulu Police Department, being a little too good-looking, a little too tall, broad-shouldered and muscular, but he was an eight year veteran of the force and his file was jammed with commendations, citations, and solid convictions.
On the other hand, the Medical Examiner was smart-alecky and distasteful. Professional but smarmy, he was one of the arrogant and condescending men Steve Shaw had ever met. The constant presence of death had shriveled his soul and chilled his heart. He had zero compassion for others, especially the dead whose dignity he regularly disrespected. To add to his unsociability, he also had the worst case of bad breath most people in the Hawaiian islands would ever encounter.
The three were inside the courtesy van parked in the carriage entrance of the Ainahau Hotel. The Ainahau Hotel was one of the top hotels in Waikiki. Old, prestigious, well connected, it had been built before Lindbergh flew the Atlantic. It had an impressive location on the beach between the water and Kalakaua Avenue. The hotel had "traditions" like croquet, lawn tennis, and high tea. The old section was not for tourists, but for long-time kamaainas, and recalled Steamship Days, radio broadcasts to the Mainland, tropical linens and overhead fans. The new section was a concrete and glass tower devoted to the tourist and convention trade.
The van was a canary-colored van, with air-conditioning and tinted windows. Hawaii had thousands of vans like it. Its uniqueness came from a still-new "Re-Elect Reagan" sticker in tropical reds, whites, and blues on the rear bumper.
Steve removed the mirrored sunglasses to see the dead man's face. Brown eyes opened and staring into eternity. Good-looking, but not handsome.
"They're cute when they're that age," the M.E. said.
"His name is Kenneth Purcell," the policewoman said. "He's a school teacher from Mill Valley, California."
"Robbery?"
"Nope," the policewoman said, indicating the dead man's Nikon camera on the seat beside him. "He still has his wallet, too."
A lab man joined the three inside the van.
"Any prints on the shaft?" Steve asked the lab man.
"It's clean," the lab man said.
Someone knocked on a window. Steve, the M.E. and Officer Ribeiro left the van. The coroner's team with its body bag wanted in.
The homicide detective stepped outside and looked around the crime scene. The carriage entrance had been taped off by the police, and now it was encircled by spectators, mostly tourists. Many had their cameras and camcorders out, and were photographing and filming every aspect of the investigation. At times like this he felt like a tourist attraction, another curiosity in his own homeland.
Steve looked towards Waikiki Beach, the world's most famous beach, beyond the cocopalms and the benches of the Ainahau Hotel. He could see for miles across the Pacific, could almost see the future. Then the light of the sun reflecting on the flat ocean came flashing back too brightly for him to face, and he turned back to the Scene of the Crime.

http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=kbpst-20&l=as2&o=1&a=ASIN:
B0035LCCZC]

Click on the above; hope it
works.http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=kbpst-20&l=as2&o=1&a=ASIN:
B0035LCCZC]

Again, thank you!


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## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

Never heard of a flame tree before, but I have not made it to Hawaii yet. This sounds interesting.


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Romancing the wrong woman on a moon-lit Hawaiian night?

Ah! Danger!!

(I firmly believe that the best way to sell a book is by letting people read some of the story.)

(A segment wherein Honolulu Homicide Detective Steven Ke'aloha Shaw picks up the wrong woman at the disco Ah Sin at the Queen Liliuokalani Hotel on Kalakaua Avenue.)

They walked toward Diamond Head, he on the ocean side and she between him and Kalakaua. The Hawaiian night was warm and alive. An ivory moon had risen to face the sea. The sand had cooled off, the surf still surged, the trade winds rustled the palms, and the night smelled of jasmine and ocean.

On her side Waikiki was a hundred hotels and thirty-five thousand hotel rooms, and at night it became a giant emerald city of bright lights, a great wall of incandescence to complement the black ocean.

"Tell me again your middle name."

"Have you forgotten it already?"

"Ke'aloha," Annie said, this time mispronouncing it. "I've never known a Ke'aloha before. Hawaiian is a beautiful language."

"My grandmother always said Hawaiian sounds like rainwater running over rocks down a mountain stream. Ke'aloha," he told her.

"Ke'aloha," she said correctly. "Ainahau," she tried.

"Ainahau. In Hawaiian, Ainahau means the place of the hau trees, those trees with the golden blossoms, but the real pride of Ainahau are its banyans, those Kaiulani banyans near the Aina Stream. They are named after the Princess Kaiulani."

"And who was the Princess Kaiulani?"

"She was the most beautiful woman of all the Hawaiian royalty. She was the Princess of the Peacocks, the Rose of the Ainahau. Born to be the Queen of the Hawaiian Islands. Princess Kaiulani was a true Hawaiian princess, although she was also half-Scottish. Her mother was Princess Miriam Likelike, a descendant of King Kamehameha the Great, the Father of his Country, and the youngest sister of King David Kalakaua, the sixth king of Hawaii. Her father was Archibald S. Cleghorn, the world-famous botanist, and his prized creation was the Ainahau, a garden built for his daughter on part of their family estate in Waikiki."

"The Ainahau? The hotel?"

"All this was fifty years before the hotel. A century ago the Ainahau was the finest botanical garden in the world, at a time when most of the Waikiki peninsula was a swamp, just taro patches and duck ponds. That one there, for instance, and all the other really tall ones."

"Ah Sin's duck ponds?"

"The beach itself was empty, except for some wooden shacks and some cocopalms. Some of those cocopalms are still alive today, still living on the beachfront lawn at the Ainahau Hotel."

Annie made a grand gesture that went beyond the ivory moon above the beach. "The princess grew up here."

"Yes. A fairytale childhood in the shadow of Diamond Head. She had servants and governesses. By the time she was seven, she was an accomplished horsewoman. She had her own pony and even more exotic pets, like white peacocks."

"Is she the Ghost of Ainahau?"

"Sometimes people in love can see the Princess walking on a moonlit night through her garden, when the air is heavy with the smell of night-blooming jasmine."

"Oh god!" she breathed.

"She loved the jasmine so much, the Hawaiian people named its blossom pikake in her honor." He touched the necklace of white flowers around Annie's neck. "You're wearing pikake. Very delicate. Very fragile, and it doesn't last long. It turns blue at the lips when it dies."

Steve had taken Annie along the beach until now they were opposite the beachlawn of the Ainahau Hotel. He changed their course and brought them close to a huge banyan tree that covered much of the manicured lawn.

"Robert Louis Stevenson lived about here. The Cleghorns entertained many famous people, but their favorite guest was Stevenson. He was drinking buddies with King Kalakaua and lived in a grass shack at Ainahau while he struggled to finish 'The Master of Ballantrae.'"

Steve told her the story as he had heard it as a child. How Princess Kaiulani was Robert Louis Stevenson's special friend. How the sickly world-famous author and the lovely teenage princess sat here beneath the banyan trees, sipping tea and listening to the peacocks, and the Scotsman would tell the young Kaiulani stories about faraway places and long-ago times.

"He adored the beautiful princess and wrote poetry about her. He called her 'the island maid, the island rose, light of heart and bright of face, the daughter of a double race.'"

They stood beneath the banyan tree in the center of the Ainahau Hotel's beachfront lawn, and they were hidden from the guests inside the hotel by its great aerial roots.

Annie stroked the bark. "And this is the same tree?"

"You can smell the jasmine, can't you?"

She looked into him, her eyes boring deep into his soul, and his balls spun around in his scrotum, and his scrotum tightened like drying leather, and his throat went dry.

"What happened to her?"

"A tragic death at the age of twenty-four." Steve hesitated melodramatically before finishing. "She died unloved. She never had a man."

Annie raised an eyebrow. "Never?"

"She died without ever making love."

Steve stared at her without blinking, as unflinching as a hunter, daring her, and she stared at him as if she could look through him, and her eyes urged him towards her.

Her voice was veiled and sad. "How terribly, terribly tragic."

"So her ghost haunts young lovers."

She touched his arms with velvety fingers. "Are you related to the Princess?"

With an effort, Steve kept talking. "My great-great grandmother was her kuma hula, her hula teacher. She taught the Princess the hula. Secretly, of course. The missionaries frowned on the hula. It was too sensual, too romantic."

"How romantic was it? How sensual?"

"Lick your lips."

She licked her lips, never taking her eyes off his.

Then Steve kissed her, and Annie let him. Her arms came around his neck. He felt the curve of her breast under his hand. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He wanted this woman as much as she seemed to want him.

(His life will never be the same.)

From the novel MURDER IN WAIKIKI, available at the Kindle Store. Less expensive writings are also available.

Enjoy good writing tonight in the privacy of your home.

Best wishes,

Fred Zackel

http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=kbpst-20&l=as2&o=1&a=ASIN:
B0035LCCZC]

Click on the above; hope it
works.http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=kbpst-20&l=as2&o=1&a=ASIN:
B0035LCCZC]


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Visit Hawaii today, as described in MURDER IN WAIKIKI …

The two detectives went back to Homicide and checked out.  Aaron Tusitala picked up his truck, then dropped Steve Shaw off at his condo, and drove off towards home.

Aaron Tusitala was logical and practical.  He was a big city person.  He loved big city life.  He loved jazz radio stations, all-nite Chinese restaurants, discount liquor warehouses, neon lights, good bookstores, foreign movies with subtitles, loud nightclubs, dirty movie theaters, Mainland newspapers, imported beers, and big city wages.  Honolulu was the only city on the Pacific Ocean.

If he had one vice above all others, Chinese food was it.  In fact, the closest Aaron had ever come to expressing any thoughts about religion, if there were a heaven or hell, it had better have Chinese food or he wasn't staying.

Detective Aaron Tusitala parked on Maunakea Street.  Years before he had walked the beat here in Chinatown.  He stopped at a little Chinese deli around the corner from the lei stalls.

The chef's station was alongside the cashier's seat, and that hatchet-wielding chef was an old friend.  His blade was a wicked thing, a hatchet that was almost one long blade.

A row of Chinese roasting ducks were hanging by their necks like a lei around the chef's station.  Their skin was the color of fine leather, and cracked from the roasting.

The chef was lancing the birds to drain their juices.  "Aloha, Detective."  He grinned.  "Tonight, I got good roast duck for you and the Missus."

Aaron loved roast duck, and the aroma from the draining juice was driving him crazy.  "Not tonight," he told the chef.  "Tonight a pound of char sui."  The Samoan loved char sui more.  Char sui was Cantonese barbecue pork.

The chef took up a chunk of barbecue pork, and weighed it on his butcher scale.  Then he hefted his hatchet, and went whackwhackwhackwhackwhack, chopping the pork into tiny slices.  Using the blade like a spatula, he scooped up the slices, and dumped them into a take-out carton.  Jamming the butt of his blade into the butcher's block, he ladled the drippings from the roasting pan atop the pork in the carton.

Aaron loved char sui thick with fat and dripping with grease.  This was mouth-watering good.  He bought a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, too.  The cola would cut the grease of the pork, just as poi cuts the grease of luau pig.

Aaron paid for his barbecue pork and Diet Coke, and went out towards his truck.  Usually, he would leisurely drive home and eat the pork from the carton, licking his fingers and getting grease stains on his shirt.  And when he reached home, the first thing he'd do would be to floss and brush his teeth.  Today, however, the char sui was for supper.


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## Nancy C. Johnson Author (Apr 28, 2010)

Yea, Fred!

Nancy


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## Carol Hanrahan (Mar 31, 2009)

Smarmy - that's a good word.  going to check out the free sample!


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

I most heartily recommend everyone who can go visit Hawaii. It is America's Paradise.

If you tell yourself, "I'm going to Hawaii," then yes you will go sooner rather than later.

But don't tell yourself, "Someday." Because that becomes just a reason why you never do.

(Like writing a book. Just do it.)

And these days are the best time to go.

Hawaii's tourism industry is suffering. 

Statewide the hotel occupancy for the first four months of this year 2010 rose 5.6 percent over the previous year to 69.4 percent, according to Hospitality Advisors LLC. 

But that figure pales in comparison with the same period in 2006, when occupancy hit 81.6 percent. 

Meanwhile, average hotel room rates have plunged as much as 25 percent from the 2006 peak.

I recommend this autumn, before winter freezes our avacados off.

Fred Zackel


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

New Price on "Murder in Waikiki!"

Now only $2.99!

(Lee Goldberg, who writes the Monk books, convinced me! Check out Lee, too, at your friendly neighborhood Kindle Shoppe!)

Aloha and mahalo!

Fred Zackel


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

The oceanside of Diamond Head is called Kahala, and Lois Buchanan and her husband Tom Manako live here in a Queen Anne mansion.  The mansion was painted white with Chinese red trim.  A century ago it had been shipped in segments from San Francisco.  It had porches on every floor, wooden shutters, white railings, and impressive lattice work.  One side of the mansion had a trellis of bougainvillea, a violent gash of red flowers across the cheek of the mansion that looked like an opened wound, as if the mansion were bleeding.

This was their Diamond Head estate.  It overlooked the leeward coast of Oahu, the lights of Honolulu and the Pacific Ocean.  There was no beach here, only rocks and a jagged cliff.  They had a beautiful seaside lawn.

Lois Buchanan was trapped in a bad dream, asleep in the master bedroom on the second floor.  In her dream she was downtown somewhere, window-shopping, and she heard a song playing on a passing car radio.  The song was her husband's "Aloha, My Love, You Are Leaving," from his first album more than fifteen years ago, and the song suddenly captured and overwhelmed her.  She raced to her own car and tried punching buttons on her radio, hoping to find the station that was playing the song, but she couldn't find it!  Then she woke up, wide-eyed and open mouthed, startled by her own panic.  She reached out for reassurance from her husband, but his side of the bed was empty, and she realized once again how alone she was.

Lois Buchanan looked around the master bedroom and saw Tom Manako's shadow everywhere.  So much of this room was his.  His collection of floral prints he had bought because he knew the local artist personally, and the pair of Baccarat dolphins he had brought home from a trip to San Francisco.  Even the Japanese wind chimes he had the audacity to fasten above their bed.

Tom Manako and Lois Buchanan were married in the chapel on the grounds of the Buchanan family estate in Moana Valley.  The Episcopal bishop officiated, and afterwards the Royal Hawaiian Band played for their wedding luau.  They played "The Hawaiian Wedding Song."  Pa'u riders on horseback carried armloads of fresh flower leis for every guest.  There were flowers and flowers and flowers.  So many flowers.

Their marriage had even made the Mainland newspapers.  But that was nine years ago, and now they slept in separate beds.  Separate rooms, for that matter.  And gossip burns hotter than a cane fire, she thought.

Soon she came and went as she pleased.  And now they no longer lived together even though they still lived in the same house.  Now she wanted to go off alone into the world. 

Lois Buchanan lay in bed without her husband and listened to the trade winds rustling the Japanese wind chimes above their bed.  Lois Buchanan had no idea what she would do next.  If she'd take a lover, if she'd stay celibate, if she'd play the field.  She knew she needed to be free.

At seven o'clock her clock radio went off, and Lois Buchanan left her bed to face the new morning.  She showered, dressed in a long sundress, then went downstairs and had breakfast on her lanai.  Her lanai had one open side, and her garden lay before her.  She sat at a marble top table surrounded by ti plants and listened to the mynahs screaming about their rights in her trees.


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

At this instant, where would you rather be? San Francisco or Wakiki?

I have three books up about San Francisco: COCAINE & BLUE EYES, CINDERLLA AFTER MIDNIGHT, and TOUGH TOWN COLD CITY.

I have a single Hawaii book up right now: MURDER IN WAIKIKI.

Right now it's 1:34 pm EST. Say five or six hours time difference, which would make it seven or eight am Hawaii time.

If you walk out of your hotel right now and (smeared in suntan lotion) slither down to the beach -- the water at this moment is about 70 or 75 degrees ... The air around you is exactly 74 degrees. (I checked.) You can get two, maybe three hours in before it gets too warm to lay out in the sun or paddle around in the water.

In two or three hours, you go shopping in any one of the great air-conditioned shops and stores in Waikiki -- while most of the tourists who come now to the beach are determined to look like pink roast beef.

Around 4 or 5 pm this afternoon, come back from shopping, change in your hotel, and go back to the beach.

The sands are deserted. The tourists are inside slathering on aloe vera lotion.

Enjoy the beach. Enjoy the water. And when you are ready -- go out to a lovely, candle-lit dinner aslong Kalakaua Bloulevard.

I recommend the Royal Hawaiian's outdoor restaurant with reservations at 6 pm, when the sun goes down in the tropics. It's a sort of canopy-restaurant, but with candles and white table cloths and ... (sigh.)

You are beachside at sunset, you can look all the way down Waikiki's sands to Diamond Head ... and if you drop your fork, it falls in the sand. Meanwhile, the catamarrans are just off-shore. Can you hear the music drifting to you?

But that's just my personal favorite at this moment in time.

Look for me on Kindle.

Click 
here









Also available at smashwords.

Did I also mention San Francisco?

Oh. And in a short time, look for A DEATH IN KEY LARGO.

It's summer. Be


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

*Chapter Two*​
Woody Folkenflit and his wife Neva stood arm in arm on the balcony of their hotel room looking down at the swimming pool nineteen floors below that sparkled in the sunshine like a crater of blue diamonds. The white concrete surrounding it was flecked with patio furniture and tropical plants.

Neva Folkenflit closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and smiled with the deep ache that comes when dreams finally come true. This Hawaiian vacation was a dream come true for both of them.

"Oh, Woody, we made it!" she gushed.

Her husband Woody was grateful that they had. This vacation was very important to him. He felt like telling her everything, but his natural reticence held him back. He opened his mouth and tried confessing his secret, but his tongue stayed silent. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"I can't believe how warm it is," he said with his raspy voice.

He was a tall, awkward man, achingly shy and dignified. A gaunt-featured, sickly man with large ears, thick-lensed eyeglasses, liver spots like measles and grey hair cut short like a GI haircut. He was still dressed for the Midwest in baggy dress slacks and a short-sleeve white shirt.

"There is a heaven on earth," Neva agreed.

She was not a handsome woman. She was horse-jawed and had deep-set eyes that were large and sorrowful. She wore her grey hair pushed back in a no-nonsense beehive. A frail woman, she was slightly stooped from age and the onset of osteoporosis.

"But then I guess every day is June in Hawaii."

Neva inhaled Hawaii again. "Oh, Woody!" she gushed. "The air and the sky and the weather! Oh, just like little angels kissing!"

Spend the rest of my life here, she thought, I could!

She thought again how much it would cost.

Woody smiled. "I'm glad, Neva."

She gave him a great big hug. "You're supposed to think young."

"I'll try," he rasped. Clumsily he hugged her. "I love you, Neva," he said earnestly.

"Woody, I love you!"

He kissed her, but his genuine affection was overwhelmed by her passionate fervor. He had to take a step back to keep his balance.

Someone knocked on their hotel room door. Woody Folkenflit left his wife's arms and answered the door. Two men, one tall and handsome, and the other a huge Polynesian, stood there.

"Mr. and Mrs. Folkenflit?" the tall handsome man asked.

"Honolulu Police Department," the huge Polynesian said, showing a badge and photo identification.

Woody frowned. "Police?"

Neva brushed past him. "Yes?" she said, remembering to be gracious and warm, although she was surprised anybody here in Hawaii knew their names. She wondered what was going on.

"I'm Detective Steve Shaw," the tall, handsome man said, "and this is my partner Detective Aaron Tusitala. We're both with the Honolulu Police Department and we'd like to talk with you in your room."

Woody didn't understand. "Why?"

Click
here


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## Marisa14 (Jun 30, 2010)

Congratulations on your book!


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

(Of all the characters I have ever created, I (heart) Lois Buchanan!)

Lois Buchanan stared at the empty chairs across from her and thought about her husband and their daughter Mary Felice. She was grateful they had decided to send Mary Felice to a convent school on the Mainland. Divorce is always a trauma, she told herself. Yes, it would be rough on Mary Felice, but it was better than living a lie.

Having reconfirmed her decision, she ate her breakfast. Her breakfast was buttermilk pancakes that her cook had made from scratch with bits of real bacon and imported Vermont maple syrup, garnished with orange slices from her own citrus grove.

While she ate, she read the morning newspaper. The headline on page one fascinated her. MURDER AT THE AINAHAU, it read. The victim was described as a school teacher from Mill Valley, California, although his name was not publicly disclosed in the article, since next-of-kin had not yet been notified. Although motive was still unknown, the newspaper speculated that robbery might have been the motivating factor.

After breakfast, Lois Buchanan went to her carport and her Mercedes station wagon. She loved her Mercedes 300 TD. She was a practical businesswoman, but her Mercedes was pure frou-frou. It was practically impractical, the silliest car she could buy. Who in their right mind would pay forty thousand dollars for a station wagon?

But Lois Buchanan worked hard for her money, and this Mercedes was her present to herself, and she deserved it. She had rejected buying a Rolls Royce or a Bentley because they were obvious signs of wealth, and she wanted to make more of a statement with her car. That's why her personalized license plates said RCH BTCH.

As she unlocked the driver's side, she noticed a caterpillar crawling up a support beam of the carport. She went to the gardener's shed and took one of his cane knives, then came back and sliced the caterpillar in half. I'll decide what lives here, she told herself, returning the knife to the shed.

She kicked off her sandals before she started the ignition. She always drove barefoot, one of those eccentricities everyone has. But driving barefoot reminded Lois Buchanan of her own roots in Hawaiian soil and sand, and that was another important part of the care and maintenance of her psyche.

As she drove from the carport and down her circular driveway, Lois Buchanan surprised her Filipino gardener standing beside his pickup truck and his leaf blower.

He was urinating on her orchids.

She blasted her horn, slammed on the brakes.

"My orchids!" she cried. "You're fired!"

Then she pressed down on the accelerator, and her station wagon roared past the frightened man.

She used her remote control to open the gates and her Mercedes swooshed through them and out onto Kahala Avenue.

(And off to work at the hotel on Waikiki Beach that she owns.)

Enjoy good writing tonight in the privacy of your own catamaran.

Click here









Aloha and Mahalo to all who have alrready bought this book!

Fred Zackel

author of ...
COCAINE & BLUE EYES
CINDERELLA AFTER MIDNIGHT
CREEPIER THAN A WHOREHOUSE KISS
A DEATH IN KEY LARGO
TOUGH TOWN COLD CITY
&
MURDER IN WAIKIKI
All (and more) are available on Kindle and smashwords


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

(We ought to introduce the lady, right? Forgive me, Ms. Buchanan.)

The two detectives skirted the crime scene and entered the Ainahau Hotel. Both were momentarily dazzled by the Ainahau's grand atrium with its high polished black stone floors, the great retractable skylights, the glittering crystal chandeliers, the tall mirrors, giant ti plants, magnificent Hawaiian artwork, and long-stemmed anthuriums rising up from the lobby's hanging gardens. The centerpiece was a giant steel sculpture, a peacock beneath a hau tree, which also served as the corporate logo for the Ainahau Hotel.

The lobby was crowded with check-ins. Luggage was stacked up in every corner like jets in a holding pattern over an airport. The noise and bustle were incredible.

Officer Torrey approached the two detectives and handed them a note. "Mahalo," Steve said. He read the note, then passed it to his partner. "Lois Buchanan would like to talk to us as soon as we have a minute."

"What do you think she wants?"

"She has a tourist murdered in the carriage entrance to her hotel, Aaron. She wants to talk to the investigating officers and find out what's going on. We hold these truths to be self-evident."

The two detectives headed towards the concierge's desk.

"Have you ever met her before?"

Steve said yes. "Once I sat at a table across from her."

They saw Lois Buchanan before she saw them. She was working the lobby, surveying her domain, making sure that everything purred for her guests.

Lois Buchanan, in her mid-forties, was a rare beauty. She was incredibly thin, had a noble, imperial profile, and her wrists were blue veins in bone china. She wore a long sundress, a very expensive fresh orchid lei, and diamond earrings the size of ice cubes. There were diamonds on her fingers, too, and they were all as grand. Her flaw (if it could be considered one) was her physiognomy. As her fortunes had grown, she had become thinner and thinner. Now she was incredibly thin, and incredibly rich. Her family physician was constantly urging her to put pounds on. Her answer was always one can never be too thin or too rich. She was the new Hawaiian nobility.

When they reached the concierge's desk, she came forward and shook their hands. "Aloha, I'm Lois Buchanan," she said, smiling.

She had a firm handshake, the two detectives discovered &#8230;

Best wishes,

Fred Zackel

author of ...
COCAINE & BLUE EYES
CINDERELLA AFTER MIDNIGHT
CREEPIER THAN A WHOREHOUSE KISS
A DEATH IN KEY LARGO
TOUGH TOWN COLD CITY
&
MURDER IN WAIKIKI
All (and more) are available on Kindle and smashwords

Click
here to visit beautiful Hawaii!


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

I do not know why Amazon did it, but my book went from $2.99 to 2.39.

So ... what the h---, folks, save yourself 60 cents and go by it now.

Click
here to visit beautiful
Hawaii and save 60 cents!









Best wishes,

Fred Zackel

author of ...
COCAINE & BLUE EYES
CINDERELLA AFTER MIDNIGHT
CREEPIER THAN A WHOREHOUSE KISS
A DEATH IN KEY LARGO
TOUGH TOWN COLD CITY
THE BLONDE IN THE RED CORVETTE
&
MURDER IN WAIKIKI
All (and more) are available on Kindle and smashwords


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Fred,

Please don't start a new thread if you already have one. . . .I've merged your latest post but, in the future, they may be deleted.

Ann
Moderator


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

My apologies, Ann.

Being Kobo'd -- for that's what led to the lowered price -- surprised me.

I was unaware that Kobo was selling my books. (In fact, they AREN'T selling at Kobo, but--) Then to find out they lowered the price ... which led to Amazon matching them ...

Arrgghh!

Best wishes, though, to you.

Fred


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

It's 4 am Christmas Eve in Hawaii. The air is 72 degrees. The water is 72 degrees.

Check out MURDER IN WAIKIKI!

Mele kalikimaka!


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Am I allowed to post a wonderful review MURDER IN WAIKIKI that I recently received? I mean, geez, unsolicited and all. And I had my best monthly sales after the review appeared. Whew. Whoever you are, mahalo! And God bless you!

Also, I was interviewed and the interview is posted:

http://gutterbooksnewsandevents.blogspot.com/

Again, aloha and mahalo!

Fred Zackel


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Thank you for your support. I am also grateful for your generous reviews.


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## Fred Zackel (Apr 24, 2010)

Aloha!

I haven’t posted for a while. There have been medical reasons and my teaching job.  (As well as the new book I am trying to complete. And the novella …)

But I would like to thank everyone for their support for me.

Thank you for the reviews. Thank you for buying my writing.

Mahalo.


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