"Switchblade" Issue # 3 SPECIAL EDITION - Oozing noir and hard-boiled thrills!

Another superb offering from Switchblade and its editor, Scotch Rutherford.
Now, in the interests of transparency, I do have a story included in this Special Edition, so my review comments here relate to all the other authors in the set.  (I'll let others comment on my work!  But it is an honour to be joining such a fine group of noir and hard-boiled artistes!)

This anthology has 9 short stories, 3 flash pieces, and a poem!  Yep, I hadn't thought about poetry in the noir context before, but the short poetic offering from J.L.Boekestein hits the hard notes.
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.  (I've actually just finished another one of Preston's books, The Sin Tax, so a review - excellent - is on its way).
Another stand-out for me here was "The Lateral Line" by Scotch Rutherford, the editor.  It was the first short story of his I've read and it was smoking hot, complete with a porn star called Jizzy Chasm!  How good is that?!  And Scotch's depiction of seediness is just brilliant.  "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.  Oh, and there was this Aussie in there, some A.B.Patterson bloke with "Little Rich Street Girl"!
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!

And I've got some more authors to get hold of novels from!
Cheers,
ABP