Funny, but not hilarious

I'm a Carl Hiaasen fan, so I eagerly snapped this new Hiassen novel up at Costco for $14.99. I read it cover to cover in a weekend, and did enjoy it, but didn't find it to be quite as funny as some of his earlier novels.

In Basket Case, Hiaasen doesn't use hyperbole in creating his bad-guy to the same extent he did in his previous novels. That use of hyperbole was always my favorite part of his novels, and I missed it in this one.

There are still some classic Hiaasen constructs though, like the protagonist using a huge frozen lizard to fight off an attacker. Also, some general Hiaasen themes continue in this new novel. For example, although there are no recurrent characters I recognized from earlier novels, there is still a "rough around the edges" protagonist: a newspaper investigative reporter demoted to obituary writer, down on his luck and unappreciated by society.

This novel was humorous, and I'm glad I bought and read it, but it didn't make me laugh so hard that I cried, and many of his earlier novels did. If I needed a book to read and had to choose between Basket Case and an unfamiliar author, I'd choose Basket Case. However, if I was recommending a Hiaasen novel to someone who had never read Hiaasen, I would recommend an earlier novel rather than this one.