♦ Crime in L.A. looks to be down about 10% for the year, Chief Bratton says.

♦ In addition to his newly hired chief of staff, Eric Garcetti says he will appoint Councilwoman Jan Perry to be Assistant President Pro Tempore.

♦ Former Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson is the shortest male on the City Council at 5 feet 5 and 146 pounds, Steve Hymon says in the LAT.

♦  Kitty Felde plans to talk about the new Congress of Neighborhood Councils today about 2:15 pm with two activists and Juliet Musso, associate professor of public policy at the USC School of Public Policy, Planning and Development. KPCC.

♦ Sen. John McCain's book tour sure has the feel of a whistlestop (coughpresidentialcough) campaign, Anne-Marie O'Connor says in the Times.

♦  Remember the Dodgers pitcher Steve Howe, who got in trouble with drugs back in the day? The Daily News' Sue Doyle reports that Howe's son, an 18-year-old senior at Valencia High School, was booked recently for possession of a controlled substance.

♦ 1947 Project has added a second bus to the blog's January tour of Los Angeles noir and crime locales. After the bloggers finish the year in March, they are looking at taking on another: perhaps 1923, a busy time in Los Angeles for crime and everything else.

♦  Robert Eversz' fifth Nina Zero mystery Zero to the Bone, about a Hollywood tabloid photographer with an unsavory past, picked up a starred review in this week's Publisher's Weekly. Eversz keeps up with Los Angeles from Prague through LA Observed and the Germany-based You-Are-Here.com.

♦  Also, Amanda Goldberg (daughter of Leonard) and Ruthanna Hopper (daughter of Dennis) sold Star Whores: Tales From Oscar Week to St. Martins. Publishers Lunch says, "a thinly-veiled roman a clef set in real Oscar week venues, told through three aspirants to A-list fame, the daughter of a Best Director Nominee, an ambitious young talent agent, and an actress who longs for a starring role as something other than the lead coma victim on ER."

♦ Mayor Villaraigosa as Howard Dean, Zev Yaroslavsky as Meat Loaf and Alex Padilla as Audrey Tatou. Go figure.

♦ In L.A. today: Tim Noah of Slate magazine signs copies of The Woman at the Washington Zoo by his late wife Marjorie Williams at a gathering of the Society of Professional Journalists, 6:30 pm at the Hotel Figueroa downtown.