The Wasp Trap by Mark Edwards
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
The Wasp Trap is a Psychological Thriller novel set at an intimate dinner party in a Notting Hill townhouse.
The dinner guests are six University friends reunited after the death of their past employer, a Professor, who brought them all together in 1999 to build a dating website based on psychological testing.
What starts as a bittersweet, somewhat awkward reunion, quickly spirals into a vicious game, as the guests are given an ultimatum. Either they reveal their darkest secrets, or they’re forced to pick each other off one-by-one.
It’s clear what’s happening is connected to their past, but they’re all gonna need to open up and be honest if they want to have any chance of figuring it out.
Alternating between past-and-present, the Reader is filled in on that period of time in 1999, as well as the lasting repercussions it may have had.
This was good. I enjoyed the set-up most of all, and did find it entertaining in the moment. For me, some of the back-and-forth was confusing, particularly since certain characters felt samsie.
I didn’t have the easiest time keeping all of the characters straight. Not necessarily in the scenes as they’re happening, but more transferring what happened to who in the past, and connecting that to their present day character.
Will, who is an author, was the most obviously distinct to me, but the others…
The end gets really wild, and I do enjoy OTT-Thrillers, but for me, I was almost mentally checked out by that point. I did like this author’s ideas and the way he incorporated the twists, and even though this didn’t blow me away, I would still be interested in picking up more from him.
Thank you to the publisher, Atria Books, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I would recommend this to Locked Room Mystery fans.