I like a bit of crime fiction from time to time but do find that they find it very difficult to avoid the usual tropes. This whole book felt like it had to be read in black-and-white. It was definitely a dark and disturbing read and I felt that the rendering of both character and setting was pretty convincing throughout.
My criticism of the book is that, as with many like novels, you can sort of see the whodunnit from relatively early on. The interest is in the way this plays out. In some respects, it was like a sort of game of Cluedo and this meta-literary device was employed to good effect, knowingly being a whodunnit, knowlingly being a little on the edge of the believable and a little quirky.
I think the 'stock' characters were deliberate and so the archetypes were recognisable and helped to drive the plot with purpose. I would recommend this, even if you don't like detective fiction.