Omens

FOREWORD:

Some time ago, I was working the scene of a vehicular homicide investigation with an associate of mine, Mike Collins. Mike and I assisted prosecution and defense teams by conducting forensic analysis and reconstruction of crime scenes and accident locations.

We meticulously crafted scale models of scenes ranging from freeway interchanges to hospital rooms to entire city blocks. In court, those models and investigations were used to clarify locations and sequences of events to the jurors. While measuring skid marks on a residential street in El Paso one afternoon, we got around to the subject of serial killers and mass murderers. Mike told me of a case he had worked on recently that involved a man with no functional sexual organs - a man who later proved to be the most dangerous form of psychotic.

"Jim," he said, kneeling with a tape measure, "what I learned when researching that case scared the hell out of me. In cases where a man’s senses of manhood and masculinity are destroyed or impaired, those men are often capable of horrific brutality. That type of deficit can breed the most dangerous type of man."

Mike knew that I had just completed my first novel, "Glass," - a story of how dangerously fragile a young mind can become in an environment of unrelenting hostility. His comment to me was the answer to a question I’d posed earlier: "What is the most evil, unpredictable type of killer you can imagine, and what would motivate him?"

Much of what you are going to read here was already drafted out on paper: the ice cream truck, the Monopoly game, the guys out in the desert collecting bones, the boating scenes on the lake, the Naked Harem, and the singing and dancing over the grave. All I needed was the perfect killing machine. I found him between the lines of Mike’s answer.

If you are hoping to read a suspense story that has elements of danger, romance and humor, go pick up my novel, "Secret Things" - this is not for you. If, on the other hand, you are prepared to experience the hideous depravity, horror and pureness of evil that can reside in what might - from the outside - appear to be a normal, functional human being, this is your book. If halfway through you realize you are in over your head, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There is no warranty expressed or implied here. From this point on, you are on your own.

In just a few pages, you will meet Cliff Rilek. I just wanted to wish you the best.

Jim W. Coleman