Soft light from a full moon spills over the Gila Valley, and the rustling of small desert wildlife can be heard among the mesquite and wild resin bushes. Suddenly, the throaty howl of a wolf drowns out all sound, followed by the scream of emergency sirens.

Is it a routine emergency in Safford, or has a terrifying and fantastic monster chosen to impose himself on the Valley?

Author Jim Coleman explored the Gila Valley thoroughly before sitting down to write his third book, "Omens," a story about a werewolf terrorizing the citizens of Safford. "This is the most unlikely place for something like this to happen," Coleman claimed. "There's a lot of mystique in small towns, and Safford is a very peaceful place."

Enter: Clifford Scott Rilek, an intensely and psychologically disturbed man who fancies himself a werewolf. As an adult, Rilek chooses to settle in Safford for the same reason Coleman put him here -- because no one expects it.

Rilek is the unfortunate victim of a botched circumcision operation, and a further victim of his father, who forces ignorance on Rilek, both as a child and as a man. The result is a confused and violent boy trapped in the full-grown, yet deformed body of a man -- a body he psychologically manipulates until he believes he has taken on the form of a werewolf.

Coleman said the idea for "Omens" came from a Texas investigation in which he scoured the areas where mass murderers and serial killers hunted their prey, looking for vital clues. It was on the scene of a crime in El Paso one afternoon when the first threads of "Omens" wove their way into Coleman's imagination.

"What is the most evil, unpredictable type of killer you can imagine, and what would motivate him?" was the question posed on the street that day.

"In cases where a man's senses of manhood and masculinity are destroyed or impaired, those men are often capable of horrific brutality," was the answer. "That type of deficit can breed the most dangerous kind of man."

That thought bred Rilek's story. Personal interviews and newscasts fueled the plot and soon Coleman had 457 pages that describe the horror that occurs when a man both physically and emotionally unequipped to survive in the adult world is catapulted from a dysfunctional home into an even more dysfunctional society.

The book is divided into five sections that document Rilek's evolution from an infant into a curious preteen, through his confusing adolescence and into his terrifying adulthood.

Because he was the victim of a doctor's misplaced surgical knife, the adult Rilek inherits $8 million from a malpractice suit. The money proves that the only thing more dangerous than a serial killer is a serial killer with too much time on his hands.

In his spare time, Rilek drives an ice cream truck -- the perfect vehicle to study the town's youngest and most enticing victims.

Rilek's midnight hunts for human prey coincide with the arrival of new Safford Police Chief Daryl Collins, but he stays one step (or one dead body) ahead of Collins until the end of the novel, when Rilek flees from Safford. Collins is right on his heels, and the stakes are much more personal than Collins ever imagined.

The book is not a pleasant read, and Coleman readily admits this.

"It's a rough book, and I'm sorry," he said. "Some of the material is a little over the edge, but then, I cut out a lot of it before it was published."

The middle section of the book comes with a warning. Coleman calls the section "The constitution of the wolf, a case study," and offers this explanation:

"The world is full of sick people, imaginary and real ... some may find (this section) deeply disturbing or even traumatic ... If you think you are prepared to peel away the many layers of hurt, betrayal, ridicule and depravity that worked to obliterate the core values and sensibilities of a young man ... read on."

The following 12 chapters are uncensored. If the reader wants a brutal, psychological picture of what may cause a man to mutilate and kill dozens of people, this is where to find it.

"The worst part is that these things really happen," Coleman said, apologetically. "Everything in the book could be true. It wasn't any easier to write than it is to read."

According to the afterword of Coleman's book, a literary agent refused to represent the "Omens" manuscript, claiming it was the most disturbing thing he had ever read.

About "Omens," Coleman warns potential readers. "If you want to read a suspense story that has all the elements of danger, romance and humor," he says, "don't read this book."

Coleman was born in Phoenix, and he later attended Arizona State University.

He lives in Port Orchard, Wash., with his girlfriend and three daughters. He lives on three acres of land where he tends chickens, gardens, bakes and writes music.

"I'm just a normal guy," he said, "with a cesspool of an imagination."