Thu 26 May 2016
A Mystery Review by Dan Stumpf: KEITH VINING – Keep Running.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[9] Comments
KEITH VINING – Keep Running. Chicago Paperback House A105, paperback original, 1962.
Another hot tip from Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine blog.
Jack Norton starts out the story as a hot jazz piano player in New Orleans, and in the first few chapters he gets mixed up with gangsters and a shady lady, commits a murder, is framed for a murder he didn’t do, and gets shot up and left for dead in a swamp.
This sort of thing is so common as to go unnoticed in paperbacks, but Vining writes in a fervid, emotionally charged style reminiscent of Woolrich, Goodis or Jim Thompson, and the opening chapters create a sensation of genuine unease.
Later on, Norton crawls out of the swamp, bums his way to Mobile where he gets work as a laborer, and eventually ends up working as a handyman/watchman at a modest nightclub on Florida’s Gulf Coast, where he strikes up a relationship with the beautiful owner… only to find his old gangster associates have moved into the area. And not only that, but there’s also a mystery player in the game, trying to kill him for reasons all his own.
The writing in these later chapters settles down to something on the order of John D. MacDonald or Dan J. Marlowe – still not a bad thing — full of the pungent detail of all that Manly stuff: dock-walloping, fist-fights, construction work, babes and bad guys, all evoked with the kind of easy-reading economy you just don’t see any more. The Mystery Figure is fairly obvious; in fact you can see him coming like the Macy’s Parade, but that doesn’t spoil the pleasure of a fast-moving, well-done read that I probably won’t remember by next week.
Keith Vining writes like someone who’s been around the pulps and paperbacks, and he made history of sorts with Too Hot for Hell — the first Ace Double. But that book and this one are all I can find out about a writer who shoulda been a contender….
May 26th, 2016 at 7:29 pm
There’s some personal information about Vining in the latest version of Al Hubin’s CRIME FICTION IV.
Besides citing the two books that Dan mentions, Al adds:
Vining, (Wesley) Keith (1905-1984)
Boat builder, U.S. navy instructor, worker in plastics, and provider of articles, stories and photos to many magazines.
PS. Not only did Bill Crider’s blog provide the impetus for this review, but it was from there that I swiped the cover photo. Thanks, Bill, I think. That lady isn’t the handsomest in the world, is she.
May 26th, 2016 at 8:00 pm
Always glad to give a hot tip. One of the CHP authors did a lot of their covers. This one looks like it could be her work. I’m too lazy to check. Vining probably wrote at least one other book, A FAMILY AFFAIR, published by Novel Library. I say “probably” because on the spine and cover, the book is credited to “Keith Vinning.” The copyright page says “Vining,” however.
May 26th, 2016 at 10:17 pm
I’ve had a few CPH paperbacks over the years, and probably still have a few, including this one. Never read one of them,nor do I know anything about the company. Borderline sleaze, I always thought, and cheap sleaze at that, but Dan’s review has made me think again about that.
May 26th, 2016 at 10:22 pm
There is a detailed listing of the entire CPH line here, along with some information about the imprint by Ken Johnson:
http://bookscans.com/Publishers/krjohnson/defunctpages/Chicago_Paperback_House.pdf
There were only 18 of them.
The covers are here:
http://bookscans.com/Publishers/others/others-chicago.htm
May 27th, 2016 at 12:28 am
Two of the best mysteries published by CPH and Newsstand Library were by Pauline C. Smith, who contributed several excellent short stories to AHMM in the 60s and 70s: CARNAL GREED (NL 1960) and NOTHING BUT BLOOD (CPH 1962).
May 27th, 2016 at 8:57 am
I have both Smith books in my collection. I’ve browsed through each of them but never read them. Now I know why I kept them.
Now to find them again. Thanks, Bill!
May 27th, 2016 at 2:45 pm
Dan,
Thanks for this one.
It’s interesting how the paperback original developed in that era, because while it comes obviously out of the pulps, and primarily the hardboiled ones, in the post war era things take a turn for the sleazy that seems at odds with the wholesome image of the fifties and early sixties.
Of course some of that was Spillane and to a lesser extent writers like James Hadley Chase and Peter Cheyney whose influence was felt even if they weren’t that widely read here. Erskine Caldwell’s backwoods novels contributed too, and of course bestselling writers like Norman Mailer and James Jones whose works were more explicit and violent that ever before.
Soon enough the paperback original writers themselves, like John D. MacDonald, started to influence the form, writers varying from the excellent Dan Marlowe, Peter Rabe, David Goodis, and of course Woolrich but also lesser but popular writers like Orrie Hitt, actually create a sort new voice in paperback fiction born out of Chandler, Hammett, and Cain, but also distinctive from them.
Lean, dark, cynical, doomed, sexist, often amoral, slightly misogynistic, distinctly American, it’s a voice that still echoes today. Even minor writers sometimes managed to capture it with striking success.
The cartoony nature of the cover is interesting here. It seems to try and split the difference between the pinup covers of artists like McGinnis or Bayre Phillips and some of the more outrageous paperback soft core bondage themed covers.
Hard to tell if that is deliberate, or incompetence on the artist part, though I suspect the latter.
I have a theory too that this kind of book is a perfect fit for that 50 to 60 thousand word format of so many paperback originals. There wasn’t much room for padding, plots had to be tight, character had to be sketched in with crisp short descriptions, dialogue dominated narrative, and the American vernacular of the period was ideally suited to telling such stories in a fast compact form.
There wasn’t a lot of room for bloat, authorial excess, or self indulgence, and the form favored an almost journalistic ‘just the facts’ voice layered with cynicism and disappointment. It wasn’t you couldn’t write badly — plenty managed it — but it was probably easier to write fairly well with editors standing around with blue pencil and scissors if you became self indulgent.
September 25th, 2016 at 4:33 pm
Keith Vining was my husband’s grandfather. In addition to the above mentioned list of achievements, at a young age he was also a professional musician and orchestral leader. Truly, Keith had many talents that tugged him in all directions… much to the dismay of his four wives!
September 25th, 2016 at 8:34 pm
K. Danforth
Thanks for the additional info about Mr Vining. As you say, a man of many talents. It’s always nice to know more about an author!