Writer, Author. He was born in Kiev, in then-Imperial Russia, to a Ukrainian father who had come to Italy as a student and an Italian mother. He moved to Rome at the age of six months, then to Milan with his mother at 16. His father, a professor of Latin and Greek, was killed during the Russian Revolution, while his mother died a few years later. He was forced to abandon his studies for economic reasons and did not even complete elementary school. Writing was always a passion. He practiced many trades, from worker to ambulance driver, before entering the publishing world. After a period at "Rizzoli" as an editor, in 1937 he took on the position of editor-in-chief of the Mondadori periodicals, a position he held until 1939. On Grazia he kept the column of the "posta del cuore" under the pseudonym of Luciano. For Mondadori he also published Arthur Jelling's series of novels. During this period he also collaborated with important newspapers, "L'Ambrosiano," "Gazzetta del Popolo," "Resto del Carlino," and "Corriere della Sera." In September 1943 he fled to Switzerland, with a large part of the editorial staff of "Corriere," where he remained until the end of the war. Back in Italy, he returned to Rizzoli as director of the women's literary periodical "Novella," in which he edited a column of "posta del cuore." Also for Rizzoli he founded the magazine "Bella," in which he wrote the column "La posta di Valentino." His most famous column was the one for "Annabella," entitled "La posta di Adrian." Reading the direct mail to all these columns, in which the readers told their personal and often difficult cases, Scerbanenco came into contact with the anguish and anger of ordinary people. This experience of lived and painful stories had a decisive importance in the maturation of his noir style, particularly raw and bitter. A writer of incredible prolificacy and versatility, Scerbanenco masterfully wrote in in many subgenres of fiction including westerns, science fiction (Il paese senza cielo, Il cavallo venduto, L'anaconda), and romance, but it was his mystery novels that achieved a reputation, recognized as one of the most important writers of the genre. His novels reread today appear, beyond some 'effective' ideas and sometimes simplistic plots, a human and bitter cross-section of the sixties and reveal a difficult, contradictory, even bad Italy, anxious to emerge but disenchanted, far from the sweetened and brilliant image that is often given in the years of the economic boom. In 1934 he became editor of the Rizzoli periodicals, writing dozens of short stories and articles. In particular, from 1936 to 1937 "Il Secolo Illustrato" published a fiction column, "Gangsters and GMen," dedicated to action stories set in American cities. In this column Scerbanenco published 7 stories with the pseudonym Denny Sher, Sheer in the first story. During these years he became a professional journalist. At that time, while he was moving from one house to another in Milan, he began to frequent Canzo, Villa Magni-Rizzoli, the Segrino lake and the Lariano Triangle, classic locations of the Milanese holiday of the time, from which he drew much of the inspiration for his novels and in which he set most of the scenes outside Milan. His first detective novel was "Sei giorni di preavviso" in 1940, in which he conceived the figure of Arthur Jelling, but success came with the series about Duca Lamberti, a young doctor disbarred from the Order and sentenced to prison for practicing euthanasia of an old lady who was terminally ill. Lamberti later becomes a private investigator who collaborates with the police headquarters in via Fatebenefratelli in Milan, in particular with the commissioner of Sardinian origins Luigi Càrrua, who was later promoted to the position of quaestor. Thi series, which began with "Venere Provata" in 1966, brought Scerbanenco to critical and public success, thanks also to the many film versions and international awards. In 1968 "Traditori di Tutti" was recognized as the best foreign novel by the prestigious French prize Grand prix de littérature policière. These novels tell of a changing Milan and an Italy in which the new well-being and social hardships, the old quarters on horseback with the countryside and the symbolic places of the rich city are inextricably mixed. In confirmation of the fame achieved, three of the novels in the series were brought to the cinema screen. In 2006, director Stefano Giulidori produced a docufiction on his life, with interviews and testimonies from those who knew him. It was presented at the Noir in Festival of Courmayeur 2006. In 2007 the publisher Garzanti published an anthology of short stories by some of the most famous Italian noir writers dedicated to the most famous character of Scerbanenco, "Duca Lamberti", entitled "Il ritorno del Duca." Many of his works have been republished in more recent years, in 1994 "I milanesi ammazzano al sabato," "Noi due e nient'altro," "Appuntamento a Trieste," and "Cinquecentodelitti." In 1995 "Lupa in convento," "Cinque casi per l'investigatore Jelling," "Le principesse di Acapulco," "Le spie non devono amare," "Al mare con la ragazza," and "Non rimanere soli" were republished. In 1996, "Ladro contro assassino," "Millestorie," "Storie del futuro e del passato," were released again. Finally, in 1999, "I ragazzi del massacro," "Al servizio di chi mi vuole," and "La ragazza dell'addio" were rereleased.