Cleo Coyle

Cleo Coyle is the pen name for American mystery writers Alice Alfonsi in collaboration with her husband Marc Cerasini, best-known for the Coffeehouse Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), a series of cozy mysteries set in and around a fictional coffeehouse in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.^[1]

Alice Alfonsi and Marc Cerasini both grew up with Italian parents in working-class neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[2] Alfonsi graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cerasini graduated from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. In New York, Alfonsi worked as a journalist and book author; 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] They live in New York City.

Alfonsi was the ghostwriter for Hidden Passions, a novelization of the NBC soap opera Passions,^[4] which spent seven weeks on the 2001 New York Times hardcover fiction bestsellers list.^[5][6] Cerasini has written four novels in the 24: Declassified series of original Jack Bauer adventures based on the Fox TV series 24. He also wrote two original novels for Marvel Comics featuring Wolverine.^[7] His nonfiction includes The Future of War: The Face of 21st Century Warfare (Alpha Books, 2003).

Among their co-authored projects are the Haunted Bookshop mysteries (Penguin Group), originally written under the pen name Alice Kimberly and later published under their Cleo Coyle name.^[8] The paranormal cozy mystery series is set in and around an independent bookstore in Rhode Island, and features the ghost of a hardboiled PI from the 1940s who helps the modern-day bookshop owner solve crimes.

• On What Grounds (2003, ISBN 0-425-19213-X)
• Through the Grinder (2004, ISBN 0-425-19714-X)
• Latte Trouble (2005, ISBN 0-425-20445-6)
• Murder Most Frothy (2006, ISBN 0-425-21113-4)
• Decaffeinated Corpse (2007, ISBN 978-0-425-21638-5)
• French Pressed (2008, ISBN 978-0-425-22049-8)
• Espresso Shot (2008, ISBN 978-0-425-22177-8)
• Holiday Grind (2009, ISBN 978-0-425-23005-3)
• Roast Mortem (2010, ISBN 978-0-425-23459-4)
• Murder by Mocha (2011, ISBN 978-0-425-24143-1)
• A Brew to a Kill (August 2012, ISBN 978-0-425-24787-7)
• Holiday Buzz (November 2012, ISBN 978-0-425-25535-3)
• Billionaire Blend (December, 2013, ISBN 978-0-425-25291-8)
• Once Upon a Grind (December, 2014, ISBN 978-0-425-27085-1)
• Dead to the Last Drop (December, 2015, ISBN 978-0-425-27609-9)
• Dead Cold Brew (January, 2017, ISBN 978-0-425-27611-2)
• Shot In the Dark (April, 2018, ISBN 978-0-451-48884-8)
• Brewed Awakening (December 2019, ISBN 978-0451488879)
• Honey Roasted (January 2022, ISBN 978-0593197561)
• Bulletproof Barista (November 2023, ISBN 978-0593197615)

• The Ghost and Mrs. McClure
• The Ghost and the Dead Deb
• The Ghost and the Dead Man's Library
• The Ghost and the Femme Fatale
• The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion
• The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller
• The Ghost and the Haunted Portrait
• The Ghost and the Stolen Tears
• The Ghost Goes to the Dogs

• Official website
• Gumshoe Review interview with Alice Alfonsi
• HarperCollins bio