Tuna sandwich? Forgedabowdid

What came first the cheesy Private Investigator novel or the Private Investigator?

Why are PI’s always portrayed in black and white, with cheap suits, cheap aftershave, viewed through a thick fog of cigarette smoke, carrying a Queens/Bronx accent, with blonde broad in tow with long-fish net stocking clad legs?

Even when I read a detective novel, I picture it in black and white….strange!
And in the UK, its all elementary, and tweed suits – and don’t forget the side-kick twat-son.
Are these chaps the most stereotypical caricatures in the history of literature?

Bernard Schlink’s The Reader has recently been brought into the spotlight as a result of its adaption to film, starring Kate Winslet. The book deals with the difficulties which subsequent generations have in comprehending the Holocaust, specifically, whether a sense of its origins and magnitude can be adequately conveyed solely through written and oral media.
Those who are not to familiar with Schlink’s previous works might not know that The Reader was a break away from his usual Detective Novels, perhaps recounting his days as a court judge and some of the intriguing cases that may have been brought up before him in court. I have only read one, but that was enough for me. I have to say I am not a huge fan… Self’s Punishment.
Picture the above mentioned stereoptype, but in a Germanic kind of way…. Difficult you might think, but not really…it seems to fit in a really odd kind of way.
I haven’t read too many of these types of novels - I am more a factual novel, or the other extreme, fantasy novel kind of guy.
But getting back to my question of PI’s and stereotypes…I came across this story recently and went into black and white almost immediately, with patches of colour – polka dots actually!

Ex-New York cop has 100,000 dlr bone to pick
A former New York police officer wants 100,000 dollars compensation for trauma he claims to have suffered since biting into a tuna sandwich and encountering a bone, a report says Tuesday.
The ex member of "New York's finest," now a private investigator, has filed the lawsuit saying he choked for more than a minute on the bone and has never been the same since, the Daily News reported.
The suit says Robert McKenna, 57, suffered "permanent and emotional pain and suffering" during the incident more than two years ago and was "in imminent fear of losing his life."
"I can't even be near tuna now," he was quoted as saying.
"Like a fish fillet sandwich? Forget it."

It makes you Sclink...oh no that was terrible!