Mine by Robert McCammon

McCammon turns the suspense up to 11

The author dedicates this book "to the survivors of an era when the whole world was watching." He is, of course, echoing the chant of anti-Vietnam War demonstrators in 1968, and some aspects of the book probably resonate best with those of us who remember the unrest of that era. Nevertheless, it's a gripping thriller, lacking in any of McCammon's usual supernatural elements, and the core story could easily happen today.

Review

Mine is the story of two women. The first, Mary Terrell, is a former left-wing, violent radical who has been wanted by the FBI since 1969. Back then she was called "Mary Terror" because she was an effective soldier in the war to take down the system, an enthusiastic participant in bombings and shootings. She was also in love with a charismatic radical leader they called Lord Jack. She even became pregnant with Jack's child but miscarried during a violent shootout with the feds. 

Twenty years later, Mary is living a marginal life under an assumed name, one in a series of false identities. She's good at disguises, good at acting, having taken drama classes in college, though she can never hide the fact that she's six feet tall. Mary has become more and more divorced from reality, however, as time has gone on. She's paranoid and schizophrenic. She has a closet full of mutilated baby dolls that she "raises" as she fantasizes of returning to Jack with their baby and living out the idyllic hippie marriage to him she had always imagined. They're mutilated because her violent temper always overcomes her, and she ultimately "murders" each of the dolls.

Laura Clayborne, the other woman in this story, is 36 years old and pregnant for the first time. Laura had been a bit of a hippie herself back in the day, but now she's a senior reporter and book reviewer for the Atlanta Constitution's lifestyle section. Her husband Doug is a stockbroker for Merrill Lynch. She drives a BMW; he drives a Mercedes. From the outside they have a good life. They don't really love each other any more, but they have a baby boy on the way and maybe that will make things better. (Doug is having a secret affair, though.)

After an evening of dropping acid and having sordid sex, Mary comes across a cryptic message in the back of Rolling Stone she'd bought earlier that day. "Mr. Mojo has risen. The lady is still weeping. Does anybody remember? Meet me there. 2/18, 1400." Mary instantly recognizes these as coded terms used by her group, Storm Front (a hyper-violent offshoot of the Weather Underground). The author of the message is proposing that the old team get back together on February 18 at 2PM. Twenty-six days from now! Mary knows where the "weeping lady" is. And she is doubly sure the writer is Lord Jack himself. Mary is going to reunite with the love of her life, the man she still thinks about every day, after twenty years. And, she decides, she's going to bring their baby back to him. Mary is happy and begins to lay plans.

Doug is with his girlfriend the night Laura's water breaks. She knows because she followed him. But now she has to get herself to the hospital fast. It is a difficult delivery. When it is over, Laura leaves a message for her husband on the home answering machine, knowing it is over between them. Her baby, David, is only two days old and resting on Laura in the hospital bed when a tall nurse enters the room and tells her she needs to take him to be weighed. Mary has used her skill in deception to case the hospital, modify a nurses' uniform to match theirs, and take the baby out a back door with a disabled alarm. She wasn't after Laura's baby in particular, but stealing a boy baby is a real bonus. She knows Lord Jack will be pleased to have a son!

Mary begins her cross-country trek to find Lord Jack. Laura is at first hysterical with fear, rage, and grief, but she pulls herself together and develops a steely resolve to get her baby back. And thus begins the chase. The cops are useless and her husband is out of the picture, so Laura takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the clues to Mary's past, ferreting out the surviving members of her terrorist group, and following her trail. Mary Terror is no easy target, however; she's already left several people dead in the wake of her journey, and more will die before it's over. All the while, the newborn baby in her possession pushes the levers of her violent temper with his crying, raising the specter of those mutilated dolls even as Mary tries to remember that she's doing it all for Jack. 

Mine consists of 400 pages of nerve-wracking suspense interspersed with nail-biting scenes of violent conflict and gore, parallels, reversals, and twists. If that sounds good to you, I'd suggest starting it on an evening when you don't have to get up early the next day.