A Favorite Late-Night TV Guest Is Writer--

I may catch part of the Dave Letterman show after the local news but as a rule I don't catch "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" which follows. Not to knock Ferguson, I remember hearing his monologues a time or two and liked his commercials promoting his show. And I like that he does the show with a loosed neck tie--yep, he looks like he's *hard at work.*

As it turns out as I checked on my favorite entertainment website Entertainment Weekly yesterday, and found that Ferguson likes to interview a certain mystery writer on his show. Long-time writer Lawrence Block , author of the PI "Matthew Scudder" series which Ferguson enjoys, is also a hoot to share the late night TV guest chair.

Need some convincing? Take a look here on YouTube as Block visited the show last month and talked about his newest book and more. Here's a googled photo of Block too who claims he's retired at 73 but spent his year writing...well, you listen to him explain it.

Recommended mystery (politicially speaking) --

Are you one of the 99 percent? If so, there's a recent mystery for you.

Charlotte is a home of the weekly newspaper "Creative Loafing"--several exist around the country, I still believe--and it had an informative cover story about the Occupy Wall Street movement last week. The story was nicely-detailed about the movement and even included a small accompanying list of examples of popular media sharing the populist sentiment of the movement.

Included are columnist John Glooms book selections with the story and his first was a 2005 mystery by Sara Paretsky, Fire Sale. Glooms writes (under the coarsely-titled subheading of "Corporate D[***]-Head Fiction" a quick blurb) "Paretsky's novel is a fast-moving mystery about scheming corporate bullies and the struggles of the working poor."

And writing about these matters puts writer Paretsky in the right ball park as she has a longtime association with community activism (look at her bio on her webpage).