Grim Fandango is best described as a detective story in the Film Noir tradition.  The hero of the piece, Manny Calavera, evokes the private eye of the 1940's or '50's melodrama whose story begins with a dame walking  into his office and who quickly finds himself enmeshed in a vast and  corrupt conspiracy which may do him in. The difference here is that at the  beginning of this story, Manny is already dead, and the events transpire in  the Land of the Dead, the place where, according to Mexican folklore,  departed souls go to embark on their journey to the hereafter.