The narration seemed perfectly suited to the story, pulling me into it without any distractions.
I was having a little trouble at first with the idea of everyone going along with the knife fights, but suddenly I got the image of the bullying, alpha mayor as being Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto, who until recent months displayed an amazing ability to make people take him seriously and to get down on his level to try to fight him, and I could totally see him as this mayor, with just a few twists in the fabric of reality. It made the story alarmingly vivid after that, picturing Rob Ford stripping and greasing up and slashing his foes -- gah! Ack!
After a pause for brain bleach, I'll also mention how much I liked the dogged journalist, who after people kept ignoring his exposes on the mayor finally decided he had to fight him physically, but it turned out that he wasn't fighting for power for himself, but trying to free the city. Unfortunately, the system was too entrenched, and the heir-apparent didn't have any better ideas than to pick up the knife and start it all over again. Sad, but felt very real.