Born in
Naples, Veraldi started his career as a translator of
hardboiled American novels. He made his writing debut in 1976, with the
giallo novel
La mazzetta, which enjoyed an immediate critical and commercial and was later adapted into a film,
The Payoff. He is regarded as an original innovator in the giallo genre, being noted for his ironic approach as well as for his realistic portrays of the Neapolitan
Camorra underworld and terrorist circles, and as the inspirator of a wave of Neapolitan giallo novelists. == Novels ==