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My favorite movie of the year, so far: Headhunters. It’s from Norway and it’s a gem. It’s a crime thriller with more twists and turns and unexpected laughs than anything since the Coen brothers put out Fargo. Trust me, I watch probably a movie every evening, sometimes two. I like foreign films. I like chick flicks. I like them all. But this is by far my favorite of the year. It’s a noir thriller, slickly filmed, beautifully acted and it has the added panache of being filmed in Norway, so you get the travel experience, too.

We saw it on Netflix streaming.

Rarely do I give a talk or do a book signing where somebody doesn’t ask me who I like to read. Like most authors, I’m an omnivorous reader and always have been. Most recently I’ve read several excellent books.

Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout. I’m still reading this and find the author paints word pictures of fairly ordinary people in her small town wonderfully. It goes to show that everybody is fascinating if you know enough about them.

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving: by Jonathan Evison.     This very satisfying story is a first-person account of a sensitive man in a sensitive situation. The writing is straightforward and reads quickly, the tale pulling you along very much like a private-eye novel, though this is not a mystery. Five stars. I enjoyed it immensely.

The Fifth Witness, by Michael Connelly. Connelly never disappoints and this was my second reading of The Fifth Witness. The book is at once complex and real enough and rich enough in texture to be true, though it’s fiction.  I also have recently reread The Lincoln Lawyer, which may be Connelly’s best. I hate saying that, because they’re all so good.

More soon, including my favorite movie of the year.

Here’s a photo taken in early September 2012 of the Puget Sound region from the top of Mount Si, also known as Mount Gadd in the Fontana series. Usually the skyscrapers of Seattle and Bellevue are visible on the horizon, but here they’re obscured by smoke from the forest fires in Eastern Washington. Some of this smoke has already traveled hundreds of miles. The town of North Bend is directly below.

After a trial and error with Smashwords, which I do not recommend, I’ve loaded the five Fontana novels onto the Barnes and Noble site on Nook. You can find the first book in the series, Black Hearts and Slow Dancing,  here. The problem with Smashwords is largely accountability. After six weeks they still hadn’t registered a single sale, although I was getting e-mails from people who’d bought them on Nook through Smashwords. It was simpler to download onto Pubit myself. Now there are registered sales every day.

Help Wanted: Orphans Preferred on Nook  here.

Morons and Madmen on Nook  here.

Going Crazy in Public on Nook  here.

Dead Horse Paint Company on Nook  here.

The current state of affairs is that Monica’s Sister,  my most recently completed novel, a Thomas Black mystery, is currently being looked at by a company relatively new to book publishing. I’m anxious to publish with them but they have been very slow in responding to my agent’s queries. They have the manuscript and have had it for quite some time. One would assume, that at some point they would either say yea or nay, but right now it’s nada. In the meantime, I’m hard at work on another Black. This one is tentatively titled Two Miles of Darkness. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll finish this before we get word on Monica’s Sister. At that point, somebody’s going to have to make a decision.

I love this photo. It’s on Silver Peak just off I-90 at Snoqualmie Pass.

This is one of my favorite late-summer hikes. It’s about 2 1/2 hours from the car to the top of Silver Peak where there are magnificent 360 degree views from Canada to Oregon. On this particular day there was a slight haze, probably from forest fires in Eastern Washington. Mount Rainier would normally be in full view in the distance but is missing. Note the six hikers below.