This is, perhaps, the single most focused book I've ever read. Henry James can get very involved. (THE TURN OF THE SCREW is an example of that.) He can be obtuse ("The Great, Good Place," anyone? By the way, that story is beautiful. But what was he trying to convey?) He can be arch. (THE BOSTONIANS.)
But he understood the characters in THE SPOILS OF POYNTON. There is no murder, no adultery and no planning for either, but this is a deadly story anyway, depicting the warfare between a widow, her son, her daughter-in-law-to-be and the woman the widow puts in the way. It is a devastating novel, so relentlessly lucid you'll want to scream. But that's the idea.