Chasing the Chupacabra

West Ashley author Lynne M. Hinkey’s latest novel, Ye Gods! A Tale of Dogs and Demons, is a story of magic and monsters run amok on a Caribbean island. In the story, author Jack Halliman sails to Puerto Rico looking for a cure for writer’s block and instead finds a dead body and becomes one of two suspects in the investigation. The other is the Chupacabra, a deadly mythical dog-like creature that is as elusive as big foot. Jack has to find out who — or what — is responsible for the killings before he ends up in jail. Again.
Hinkey, moved to the Charleston area from Puerto Rico in 1999. “[I’m] a marine scientist by training, author by passion, and curmudgeon by nature,” says Hinkey. She first headed to the islands as a 19-year-old to attend the University of the Virgin Islands. She spent sixteen more years in the Caribbean, where she gathered the stories and characters that populate her writing.
The chupacabra (Spanish for “goat-sucker”) first came to Hinkey’s attention when she lived in Puerto Rico in the late-’90s. The monster has since captured the nation’s and world’s imagination, with sightings reported throughout Latin America, the southwestern US, Florida, and even Maryland. It has featured in shows like The X-Files, The Walking Dead, Animal Planet’s Lost Tapes, and South Park. Now, Hinkey’s crime-caper, a “Scooby-Doo meets Murder, She Wrote mash-up,” tackles the mythology surrounding the monster.
Ye Gods! is available on April 1 through the publisher, Casperian Books, as well as through most online booksellers, and at a few gift shops and bookstores in the area. It will also be available in electronic formats beginning May 1.
 
For more information visit www.casperianbooks.com.