The Wasp Trap

In the present day, six friends reunite at a London memorial for Sebastian, the professor who once employed them all. The reunion turns hostile when two of Sebastian's current employees take the group hostage, demanding they reveal secrets tied to something Sebastian mentioned on his deathbed.

The novel alternates between this hostage night and the summer of 1999, when the group — then recent graduates — were gathered at a remote country estate to help Sebastian build a dating website. Their real project, it turns out, was more ambitious: a psychological questionnaire designed to identify psychopathic traits in a partner, which they nicknamed the Wasp Trap.

As the present-day standoff escalates, the dual timelines converge, exposing how the group's work on the test in 1999 shaped — and damaged — each of their lives, and what happened at the estate that none of them have spoken about since.