Mine

A psychopathic female fugitive provokes a mother’s vengeance in this terrifying thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author of Gone South and Boy’s Life.   Back in the 1960s, Mary Terrell shot and killed a man. A former member of the fanatical Storm Front Brigade—a splinter group of the notorious Weathermen—Terrell has stayed one step ahead of the FBI for decades. Living with numerous identities and menial jobs, Terrell’s only constants in life have been LSD, psychotic delusions of motherhood, and murderous rage. The sixties are long gone, but Mary is still out there. Now, provoked by a message she reads in Rolling Stone, she’s convinced that the surviving leader of her old band of radicals wants to build a life with her. So one night, Mary sneaks into the maternity ward of an Atlanta hospital. Laura Clayborne has a successful career and now, a newborn baby. She’s the type of person who is sensitive to suffering and injustice. But the kidnapping of her infant son has brought out a white-hot fury. She’s not going to sit and wait while the FBI investigates. She’s going after Mary herself—headlong and relentless—on a twisting and violent cross-country pursuit to get her child back. But to track a madwoman, Laura will have to think like one . . . A Bram Stoker Award winner, this “expertly constructed novel of suspense and horror” (Publishers Weekly) from the author of Swan Song, Speaks the Nightbird, and other acclaimed works is “feverishly exciting . . . a page-whipping thriller” (Kirkus Reviews).

Amazon.com Review

Robert McCammon asks, "What happened to those children of the sixties who learned the language of hatred, who swore oaths upon their bloodstained manifestos and vowed to never surrender?" Most went on to other lifestyles. But Mary Terrell, a.k.a. "Mary Terror," did not change. Her insanity deepened into schizophrenia, and in the late '80s she still calls herself "freedom fighter for those without rights in the Mindfuck State." Hallucinating, heavily armed, and possessed by the delusion that an infant son will restore the good ol' days with her ex-lover, Mary steals a baby. But the child's mother is a strong, resourceful woman, and she recruits an ex-radical to help her. What ensues is a hair-raising chase across the American Midwest in wintertime, toward a final confrontation in which both "mothers" proclaim, "He's mine." Not only is Mine an intense horror novel (winner of a Bram Stoker Award), but refreshingly, all three main characters are women.

From Publishers Weekly

A psychotic leaves a trail of murder victims in her wake after she kidnaps a newborn child and goes off to join a revolutionary group to which she belonged during the '60s. Although McCammon portrays his left-wing characters as motivated by adolescent rebellion rather than by radical politics, "he delivers an expertly constructed novel of suspense and horror," said PW. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

When her newborn son is kidnapped by a former Sixties radical with a violent, tumultuous past (her nickname is "Mary Terror"), thirtysomething yuppie Laura Clayborne takes matters into her own hands and pursues Mary across the country, pausing only for an occasional shootout or Big Mac. Unlikely coincidences and shabby dialog abound, as Laura enlists the aid of Mary's formerly radical but now repentant cohort. The story inexorably winds down to a final confrontation in northern California. McCammon ( Usher's Passing, LJ 8/84, and Mystery Walk, LJ 6/1/83) has built a respectable following among horror/suspense fans, and this should please them despite its pulpish overtones. Purchase also to mollify rabid fans of Stephen King, since McCammon often reads like a watered-down version of the master.- Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews

“Feverishly exciting . . . a page-whipping thriller.”

Publishers Weekly

“An expertly constructed novel of suspense and horror.”

The Birmingham News

“Mine is McCammon at his very best and then some.”

About the Author

One of the founders of the Horror Writers Association, Robert R. McCammon (b. 1952) is one of the country’s most accomplished authors of modern horror and historical fiction. Raised by his grandparents in Birmingham, Alabama, McCammon published his first novel, the Revelations-inspired Baal, when he was only twenty-six. His writings continued in a supernatural vein throughout the 1980s, producing such bestselling titles as Swan Song, The Wolf’s Hour, and Stinger.  In 1991 Boy’s Life won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. After his next novel, Gone South, McCammon took a break from writing to spend more time with his family. He did not publish another novel until 2002’s Speaks the Nightbird. Since then he has followed “fixer” Matthew Corbett in two sequels, The Queen of Bedlam and Mister Slaughter. His newest novel is The Five. McCammon and his family continue to live in Birmingham.

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