"Switchblade" Issue # 3 - hard-boiled, noir, and addictive!

I am absolutely loving Switchblade!  Issue 3 is, once again, a beautifully hard and dark offering from the Switchblade house, and its editor, Scotch Rutherford.
 
Following my review of the Special Edition of Switchblade Issue 3, my copy of the normal Issue 3 arrived.  There was a fair bit of commonality between the two versions of Issue 3, so I’ve included my earlier comments below for the pieces I read in the Special.
However, the pieces I hadn’t read before were a real treat.  I was especially impressed with Robert Smith’s “Duke’s Birthday Bash” – the description of a certain class of Englishman was so on the money, and it was a great story.  Going to go looking for more of Smith’s work, for sure.  For the flash fiction extra, Joe Ricker’s “Baggage” managed a very dark look at some sad lives in just 3 pages – great work.  And there was another poem, “Switchblade: A Screwdriver for the Skin”, this one by Zakariah Johnson. Whilst poetry and noir don’t seem like a match, this verse does it, and viscerally so – I even got a bit squeamish.  But then I’m terrified of bloody needles, so a superb, poetic description of a blade doing its nasty work is guaranteed to set my skin on edge.
 
From my earlier review of the Special Edition...
I really, really enjoyed all the pieces in the collection.  Personally, I prefer short stories over flash fiction, I think because there's more story development by definition, but everything here was very good indeed.  The short story set opens with Preston Lang, already a firm favourite of mine, and he delighted darkly as always with "Press It Down".  Nice twist as usual, loved it.  "Crawdaddy" by J.D. Graves is noir at its best with great characters, bent cops, and twisted tragedy all round!  And for more twisted mayhem with outstanding female sexual predators, Calvin Demmer's "The Lioness Must Hunt" is femmes fatales taken to a new level - I don't want to meet those ladies, ever!  There were also great short stories from Charles Roland, Eric Beetner, Ehren Baker, and Morgan Boyd.
Then the flash fiction rounded it out, with pieces from J.L. Boekestein, Richard Risemberg and Michael Loniewski.
 
Yep, as we are coming to expect, if you love noir and hard-boiled, then Switchblade delivers, both barrels at once!
Great work again, Mr Rutherford!  BRAVO!
 
And I've got some more authors to get hold of novels from!
Cheers,
ABP
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