Cleo Coyle

Cleo Coyle is the pen name for author Alice Alfonsi, who collaborates with her husband Marc Cerasini to write the Coffeehouse Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime, a division of Penguin Books. This series of cozy mysteries is set in and around a fictional coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.^[1]

Biography

Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini grew up with Italian parents in working class neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[2] Alice Alfonsi graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Marc Cerasini graduated from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. In New York, Alice Alfonsi worked as a journalist and book author; Marc Cerasini as a magazine editor, literary critic and fiction and nonfiction author. The couple met in Manhattan and married at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas.^[3]

The writers live in New York City where they publish books independently and together. Alice was the ghost writer for Hidden Passions, ISBN 0-06-107605-8, a novel based on the off-beat, then-NBC soap opera Passions. The book spent seven weeks on the 2001 New York Times hardcover fiction best sellers list.^[4] Marc Cerasini has written four novels in the 24: Declassified series of original Jack Bauer adventures based on the Emmy-winning Fox Broadcasting television show 24. Marc has also written two original prose novels featuring the Marvel Comics character Wolverine.[1] His nonfiction includes The Future of War: The Face of 21st Century Warfare (Alpha Books, 2003, ISBN 0-02-864431-X), with an introduction by Colonel Jimmy Butler, United States Air Force (Ret.).

Among their co-authored projects are the Haunted Bookshop mysteries, written under the pen name Alice Kimberly.^[5]

The Coffeehouse Mystery Series

• On What Grounds (Berkley Prime Crime, 2003, ISBN 0-425-19213-X)
• Through the Grinder (Berkley Prime Crime, 2004, ISBN 0-425-19714-X)
• Latte Trouble (Berkley Prime Crime, 2005, ISBN 0-425-20445-6)
• Murder Most Frothy (Berkley Prime Crime, 2006, ISBN 0-425-21113-4)
• Decaffeinated Corpse (Berkley Prime Crime, 2007, ISBN 978-0-425-21638-5)
• French Pressed (Berkley Prime Crime, 2008, ISBN 978-0-425-22049-8)
• Espresso Shot (hardcover, Berkley Prime Crime, 2008, ISBN 978-0-425-22177-8)
• Holiday Grind (Hardcover, Berkley Prime Crime, November 2009, ISBN 978-0-425-23005-3)
• Roast Mortem (Hardcover, Berkley Prime Crime, August 2010, ISBN 978-0-425-23459-4)
• Murder by Mocha (Hardcover, Berkley Prime Crime, August 2011, ISBN 978-0-425-24143-1)
• A Brew to a Kill (Hardcover, Berkley Prime Crime, August 2012, ISBN 978-0-425-24787-7)

Notes

1. ^ http://www.gumshoereview.com/php/Review-id.php?id=1042
2. ^ http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6590845.html
3. ^ http://www.cozylibrary.com/default.asp?id=235
4. ^ http://www.soapcentral.com/ps/news/2001/0226-bestseller.php
5. ^ http://www.cozylibrary.com/default.asp?id=235

External links

• Cleo Coyle on the Berkley Prime Crime Publisher's website
• Gumshoe Review interview with Alice Alfonsi
• Cozy Library website profile of Alice Kimberly/Cleo Coyle
• Library Journal entry on Cleo Coyle
• Soap Central article on Hidden Passions
• New York Times adult hardcover fiction best sellers list 2001
• HarperCollins website
• Interview with Marc Cerasini about the Wolverine prose novels
• Cleo Coyle's official website