Has Elmore ever uttered his opinion of double D? Sure, he can be blustery, but goddamn that man can write a razor sharp sentence, as well as some hilarious dialogue, just not always in the same real-world way as EL. The precision is where I’d really compare him to EL; the two most precise writers I’ve read, while using mostly everyday language (the ‘mostly‘ pertaining to DeLillo). Another good thing is how they can evoke emotion without getting mushy at all, although I suspect that’s why some people label them as cold / no heart to the story, etc.

A couple of Carl Hiaasen novels I read recently reminded me a lot of EL’s stuff. Heavily dialog-driven, lots of light humor, suspense and a milder form of violence, but you wouldn’t necessarily call it crime fiction. Close, but not quite.
There were even a few touch stones in the Miami-based stories. Good stuff.

Go back to Hiaasen’s earlier works with Montalbano(?). Great stuff, less humor driven. Also check out James W. Hall’s works, more like Hiaasen minus the laughing gas. Hiaasen’s humor was not so extreme early on, more deadpan satirist. I finally quit him when his novels became more funny for funny’s sake.