I began writing about Matthew Scudder in the mid-1970s. The first novel, The Sins of the Fathers, appeared in 1975, and A Drop of the Hard Stuff—the 17th and most recent—was published in 2011. Over the years Scudder has also been featured in 11 short works of fiction; By the Dawn's Early Light, which first appeared in Playboy in 1984, is the third of them.

I had thought Scudder's career was finished with the publication of the fifth novel, Eight Million Ways to Die. But I'd promised a short story to Bob Randisi for a private eye anthology (The Eyes Have It) and By the Dawn's Early Light was it; it got Scudder back in business, and in the process won an Edgar Allan Poe award and became my first story to appear in Playboy.

A year later, I saw a way to make a larger story out of it, adding a second plotline and giving the original story more dimension, and the result was When the Sacred Ginmill Closes, which many readers have chosen as their favorite Scudder novel. But it seems to me that the short story holds up, and I hope yu enjoy it.

By the Dawn's Early Light is included in The Night and the Music, my collection of all 11 Matthew Scudder short stories, available from Barnes & Noble as a Nook eBook or in handsome trade paperback form.