When the Sacred Ginmill Closes is a Matthew Scudder novel, written by Lawrence Block. Based on the short story "By the Dawn's Early Light", and published four years after Eight Million Ways to Die, this novel resurrected Block's interest in the character and led to his writing 10 more titles in the series. The book's title derives from the Dave Van Ronk song Last Call
It deals with an alcoholic detective who quit his job because he had shot a little girl while working for the New York Police Department. He frequents many bars such as Ms. Kitty's. There are three crimes that Scudder solves in this novel. First, there is a robbery of a safe at the Morrisey's, who support the IRA. Second there is a robbery of the real books that shows Skip's and Kasabian's tax evasion records. Third, there was a guy that murdered his wife. In the end, Bobby was the one that helped two actors rob the Morriseys and Skip. Skip turns Bobby in to the Morriseys to get a $10,000 reward. They later find the three people dead. Scudder gets a phone call from a depressed girlfriend of the man that killed his wife. She later kills herself and Scudder makes the evidence frame the guy. He thinks that it serves justice.