Set in 1999, this is a great thriller for anyone nostalgic for floppy discs, 90s music and pre- internet life. Based around a group of young graduates trying to break into the dot com bubble, it has a kind of dark academia vibe as they are under the spell of their enigmatic psychology professor in creating a dating website. It's all about relationship secrets, sexual tension and deadlines and has a really edgy feeling throughout. I absolutely loved it I loved Will , and couldn't believe the final twist! Wow!

ARC received from NetGalley with thanks.

By Chapter 11 (21% in, not that I was checking obsessively), I was properly invested. The characters had me hooked and I’d already developed strong opinions on who I felt was shady, who was innocent and who just needed a break. The dual timeline worked really well, and the setting in both was absolutely gorgeous. I’m a sucker for books set in a big sprawling house and this book had two… winner.

By Chapter 38, some of the secrets were out and there was a big reveal. I was expecting elements of this so no huge surprise but it kept me completely gripped regardless. I couldn’t stop reading, it got to the point where I was sneaking chapters in whenever I could with 4 kids around me. Fast paced and addictive.

Then came the ending. It tied things up nicely, but I was waiting for one last jaw-drop moment and it didn’t quite land. I don’t need fireworks, but I wanted just a bit more oomph.

All in all, this was a brilliant read. Tense, twisty and with two brilliant settings in a timeline that worked really well. Nearly five stars, but I’m docking half for the slightly underwhelming ending.

Final rating: 4.5 stars
Highly recommend.

Tense but satisfying locked room style thriller. Six friends reunite for a dinner party after many years and it seems one (or several?) of them have a secret. The story moves between current day and flashbacks to the 90’s. This book kept me eagerly turning the pages to find out what happened next. Another great story from Mark Edwards.

Thanks to Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House for my advanced reader copy. This review is my own honest opinion

The Wasp Trap is a fast-paced thriller with a clever premise and some fun twists along the way. It’s definitely entertaining, but I didn’t feel as hooked as I’d hoped.

Still, it’s an easy one to fly through—great if you’re in the mood for something light and suspenseful!

This book ticks all the boxes for a good psychological thriller: it is packed with suspense and the tension rises until the very end.

In 1999, six young and ambitious students become the disciples of the excentric and even more ambitious Professor Sebastian Marlowe. He tasks them with creating a novelty dating app. The group works under extreme pressure and in seclusion but full of hope to make it in the by now strongly emerging tech economy. The App never gets released because the project gets abruptly abandoned, the six friends separate and start leading very different lives.

25 years later – the real time of narration – they meet up again to celebrate the life of their late professor. This reunion turns into a nightmarish game of survival in which no secret remains unearthed. The reason for their sudden dispersal so many years ago slowly emerges and they are all somehow linked to what had happened then.

The wasp trap is all about how to catch a psychopath, it is full of twists and turns – a really clever page-turner. Some aspects of the storyline struck me as quite unrealistic – but then I don’t really expect realism in a psycho-thriller. It had me hooked and I finished it in no time.

I am grateful to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With many thanks to Netgalley for this free arc and I am leaving this unbiased review voluntarily
If you like your locked room mysteries then you are going to love this. Full of tension and suspense as it flows beautifully between past and present. Totally unpredictable completely addictive and some great twist and turns. Not as creepy as I thought it would be having only read the Magpies by this author. The writing is on point and the pace builds nicely to a dramatic climax. The epilogue was a clever addition. 4.5⭐️

In 1999 six recent graduates are recruited by a rather eccentric Professor to build a dating website based on psychological testing. Although it seems to be going well the project is abruptly abandoned. Now 25 years later two of the group Georgina and Theo who married, invite the others to a reunion dinner to celebrate the life of the recently deceased professor. What should have been a pleasant evening spent reminiscing soon turns sour when the guests are informed that one of them has been harbouring a secret for the past 25 years and unless it's revealed there will be dire consequences for them all.
I liked the premise of this book and the first half was enjoyable but the pace slowed and the story became rather far fetched.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity of reading an ARC of this book.

Twenty five years; the guests at Georgina and Theo's dinner party have gathered to remember the professor and the project they worked on together at his rambling mansion twenty five years ago. Dark undercurrents are at play as they each remember their own roles at that time, and how their work was so suddenly halted. And when the chef from the catering company appears, brandishing a shotgun and demanding to know The Secret.......appetites diminish.

I liked this book but it wasn't one of my favourites by this author. It took me until I was half way through to get into the story before I started to enjoy it. I liked the past and present timelines and was surprised by the twist at the end. There just seemed to be something missing, usually books by this author grab me straight away and I can't wait to find out what happens next but with this one didn't do it for me. I'm hoping it's just a blip and look forward to reading the next one. Thanks for my ARC.

Six friends find themselves back together after 25 years. Something happened that summer of 1999 that not all of them know about. But one is keeping a secret and someone wants to know who is keeping the secret and what it is!!!

This is a dual timeline book with a dinner party in present day and the past as young adults working together.

Mark Edward’s has written a great book here with lots of plot twists and another plot being told under neath too. A great book with a. Good twist.

this book was definitely the best thriller l've read all year. It was fast paced and I was hooked from the start. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen the story took a sudden turn.
It was about six friends who meet up at a dinner party after 25 years to celebrate the life of Sebastian Marlowe, their former professor who had an unhealthy obsession with investigating
psychopaths. After a while, suspicious things start to happen and the old friends begin to regret coming.
This book was
mainly from the perspective of the MC, Will, but there was also multi POVs and there were flashbacks. There was also a romantic subplot.
I highly recommend this book and I have no complaints. I loved how all the characters were written. They were all very interesting and had their own unique traits. I have never read a book by Mark Edwards before but this book has convinced me to read more of his books!

The wasp trap was an excellent read. I loved the back and forth of time. The twist about the real psychopath at the end was great.

The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards begins with old friends gathering for a dinner party. Things take a drastic turn for the worse when they are held hostage, one of the 6 friends has a secret the captors want and no-one can leave until the secret is revealed.

I really enjoyed the first 75% of the book but then felt things got a little far fetched in the last part of the novel. The tension and fear felt real in the first part of the novel but then kind of fell away in the last part. in saying that I would recommend it to anyone who likes thrillers.

A slow burner which only springs into life after halfway. Far fetched at times but just too slow and it didn't really grip as one would have both liked and expected.
My thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph Penquin Random House for this arc in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

I adored The Magpies but it's been a while since I'd read a Mark Edwards book so I was looking forward to diving into his latest. I liked the inclusion of past and present chapters although I would have liked more from the POV of the past as this felt lacking in detail to me at times. Likewise, the group of friends had a great mix of personalities but a couple like Rohan felt lacking in depth although I appreciate with so many characters, this can be difficult to achieve. A few parts of the book was quite far fetched so you did have to suspend belief but I enjoyed the twists threaded throughout. Overall, this was an easy read that kept me hooked.

The Wasp Trap, Mark Edwards

Synopsis: Summer 1999. Will joins five other idealistic graduates working for an eccentric psychology professor. They're going to launch a website to change online dating forever.
No-one expects it to end in tragedy.
Twenty-five years later, Will gets an invitation: a dinner party. A chance to see the old gang again.
Everyone has something to hide about what really happened that summer. But only one of them is willing to kill to find the truth...

🐝

Firstly, a huge thank you to NetGalley, Michael Joseph and Mark Edwards for this ARC in return for my honest review.

This is only my second Mark Edwards book and so far this one sits in second place!

This book flips between 1999 and the present day, which I felt was useful to build the characters and the setting. However, I found it to be a little slow in the first half of the book.

The second half of the book ramped up and I enjoyed all of the twists and secrets that came to light. Was a twisty, dark thriller that would be perfect for fans of dark academia.

I don't think it'll be very memorable for me, but definitely a solid thriller that I enjoyed! I enjoyed The Psychopath Next Door more, so if you fancy trying this author out - I'd recommend that one first 😄

Rating: 3.5⭐️

It's been a while since I've read a book by Mark, but I have to say, I loved this.
Six friends reunite for a dinner party to celebrate the life of Sebastian, their professor back in 1999.
What starts as a lovely catch-up soon turns into something more sinister.
A deadly game, where one of them has a secret. Who knows something from 1999? Are they going to reveal it before someone gets killed?
A brilliant twisty, fast-paced thriller that alternates between past and present.
I loved how each character revealed their secret thinking it would save them, very clever.
I was definitely invested in this and the twist at the end!
Addictive.
Thanks to Netgalley and Michael Joseph/Penguin Random House for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I am not going to like doing this review. I’ve been a fan of Mark for many years now, I’ve read and reviewed a lot of his books and always rated them highly. Not the case with this one unfortunately.

Another reviewer commented that if they’d not seen Mark’s name on this cover they’d not believe he wrote it. I totally agree. This is not the standard of storytelling I’ve known from Mark.

Where do I begin? The plot switches between two timelines and I know the past timeline (1999) is designed to build the picture of the characters and how they all come to be sitting around a dining table in a dining room with a couple of lunatics with shotguns demanding to know a secret, or die one by one. But, I was SO bored going back there. I felt it was too wordy with very little going on until closer to the end. Then it got a bit more juicy.

The current day plot started out really interesting. I was definitely intrigued for a while then it started to get so unrealistic I was getting frustrated. The characters never really expanded so most were very hard to connect with, very one dimensional and even key figures seemed to be very peripheral.

But..then it just got ridiculously silly. Very unbelievable and at times I saw such major plot holes that didn’t make sense. It got very disjointed too, jumping timelines then throwing in new elements to confuse it more. It just was all over the place. When it got near the end and the “reveals” occurred I was so dissatisfied that it led to where it did. It felt like too much was crammed into the end part of the book and the rest of it was excruciatingly slow. If this was not Mark Edwards and my hope for a turnaround this would have been unfinished for me.

The lack of realistic storyline is what really lets this down. It’s way too far-fetched and too much mixed in. Like overkill that didn’t enhance the plot. Tied in with the non-existent character development and depth which also lets it down. It could have been a really good novel but it wasn’t for me.

I hate to rate this only 2 stars and if you’ve not read any books by Mark Edwards don’t let this one put you off. I’ve raved about other books he has written. Given them 5 stars so this surprised me. This is an anomaly, a blip for me in my reading journey of Mark’s books. Overall it was really boring sadly. I’m going to bump up my reviews of his books I loved on Goodreads so you can compare, don’t write him off based on this review alone.

‘The Wasp Trap’ by Mark Edwards tells the story of a group of former PhD students, reuniting to remember the legacy of their former supervisor. What begins as a refined and nostalgic dinner party soon turns in to a nightmare, where unrequited love, missing people, past sins and ruined lives coalesce into unbearable tension.

I’ve really liked many of this author’s books and this is another great addition to his repertoire. I’m giving it four stars and would recommend to fans of twisted academic thrillers.

I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from the publisher Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Bonus points for having the book title appear in the plot in a clever way !

The Wasp Trap was an interesting story, told from various points of view of a friend's group. The story also contained engaging flashbacks that were wholly relevant. The book had a great flow and kept me eager to read one more chapter (I finished it in a day!).

While it had a similar feeling/setting to that of Agatha Christie's "And then there were none" this still felt like a fresh story. While it kept me guessing, it also had a very satisfying ending.

My one criticism would be the writing of the two chefs we meet early on but other than that, I loved it.

Would definitely read again!