The Merciful Angel of Death

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. The Merciful Angel of Death is the fifth of these; it frst appeared in 1993 in The New Mystery, Jerome Charyn's anthology of stories by members of the International Association of Crime Writers. The story was written during the depth of the AIDS epidemic, and reflects its time. The Merciful Angel of Death is included in The Night and the Music, my collection of all 11 Matthew Scudder short stories, available for Kindle or in handsome trade paperback form.