Will Dean always comes up with an innovative thriller, and this is no exception!

While I love the water, I think scuba diving would be my limit - and what is expected of the characters in this book is far beyond that!

Even when things are going to plan, the sense of claustrophobia is tangible - literally relying on others for the air (well, gas) you breathe, and trusting them to follow procedures to the letter, so that you all make it back to shore alive.

Only, of course, that doesn't happen, and you are trapped. Because trying to escape will also kill you.

It was a great twist on a locked room mystery and it had me absolutely gripped - so much so that I read it in a day. My only complaint was that it sort of fizzled out towards the end - the motivation behind it all just seemed a bit weak. Other than that, I loved it!

Will Dean will always be an auto buy author for me. Nothing but absolute class and The Chamber is just unoutdownable, read in just a couple of sittings. Thank you for my copy!

Ellen Brooke is the only female saturation diver working in the North Sea. For up to a month at a time, she leaves her everyday 'onshore' life behind to sequester herself in a cramped, humid hyperbaric chamber with no privacy, no autonomy and no contact with loved ones. Saturation divers are well compensated for their hazardous occupation, but for Ellen the true reward is in the incomparable freedom she finds at the bottom of the sea.

For this job, she is one of six divers who will be spending a month working at depth. The team settles in for the duration, with Ellen and another veteran, André, making the first descent in the diving bell. Upon their return though, one of their brothers is found unresponsive in his bunk, and it is not long before the already dense atmosphere is infused with fear and suspicion.

Will Dean's aquatic locked room mystery is meticulously researched, with every detail of life as a saruration diver included for context. The book is set in the early 00s - presumably because if Dean wanted to have some characters recounting their memories of disasters such as the sinking of the MS Estonia in the Baltic Sea in 1994 or the Byford Dolphin explosion in 1983, the alternative would be to crew the chamber with septuagenarians. A helpful glossary of contemporary diving terms is included at the beginning of the book, but once I'd got to grips with the jargon, I didn't find that it in any way stultified the plot or made it hard to read, as I've seen mentioned in other reviews.

Dean does a fine job of setting the scene for the mystery, capturing the claustrophobia and danger of the situation in skin-crawling detail. Long before the unfortunately named Teabag meets his demise, the sense of tension and dread is almost unbearable, as Ellen's narration lays out all the possible things which could go wrong during saturation diving. When the mystery is introduced, the result is pressure (atmospheric) on top of pressure (the awareness of the cost of a single small mistake) on top of pressure (the suspicion, fear and grief which begins to gnaw away at the surviving divers.) However, even as he details the ever-present threat of death in its myriad forms, Dean vividly conveys what it is about saturation diving that keeps Ellen coming back.

Short chapters heighten the tension, compelling the reader to keep turning the pages as the countdown to decompression ticks by and the divers' physical and psychological duress intensifies.

While there is much to like about The Chamber, a few elements keep it from being a great thriller rather than just an entertaining one. Besides Ellen, none of the characters are particularly fleshed out - in part, I guess, because it helps the reader to imagine that any of them could be responsible for Teabag's death (if indeed someone is responsible) - and this does make it hard to care too much about their fates. There are some effective twists, but they are undermined by more clumsy misdirects - and I would have preferred a less ambiguous ending with the whos, hows and whys untangled.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My thanks to the Publishers via NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

This was a claustrophobic read, that had me engrossed in the lives of the occupants of this hyperbaric chamber. What a lot of twists and turns you are taken on as the author draws you into the lives of the divers, that are soon wondering what the hell is happening to them and all they want to do is get OUT.

Who can they trust, can they trust one another, can they trust the people that they are communicating to above the water? It is so hard to know WHO to trust?

Once again Will Dean has written a great read that in many ways can be called a modern Agatha Christie style read, as it has been compared in some reviewers as being similar to And Then There Were None. I can see why that comparison has been made, but to divulge that reason would be to give too much away. If you are looking for a read that will make you feel that you are experiencing the lives of the characters with them, then this book will fit that bill. I certainly felt that way and was longing to escape the confines of 'The Chamber', at my earliest convenience..

An excerpt from the book that resonated with me.

'Jumbo scratches his ankle down by his Sonic tattoo and complains he cannot remember his PIN code, his daughter's birthday or his new mobile number. This is what they call 'bubble brain'. Too many sat hours affect our minds in some strange and undocumented ways.'

Having had children in the past I can empathise with the 'bubble brain' phenomenon to some extent, as I suffered with 'baby brain' and in my latter years have had 'menopause brain'.

Loved this. Enjoy all Wills writing and this didn’t disappoint although the ending threw me and was left wondering

The Chamber by Will Dean is a gripping psychological thriller set in the claustrophobic confines of a North Sea diving chamber. Ellen Brooke and her team of divers are locked inside, working to repair oil pipes at extreme depths, but when a diver is found unresponsive, the tension escalates. With four days of decompression ahead, they are trapped together in a high-pressure environment where trust is fragile, and paranoia begins to set in. Dean expertly builds suspense, using the isolation and danger to create a suffocating atmosphere. This tense, slow-burn thriller delves into the psychological toll of fear and suspicion, making it a compelling and unnerving read.

This was a suspenseful, atmospheric and claustrophobic read. Based on a group of saturation divers stuck in an underwater chamber, this was a fascinating read which kept me guessing to the end. The book was well plotted with interesting characters and I really enjoyed it.

I will reqd anything and everything Will Dean writes. He is a master of suspense and dare I say horror? There is little difference between a thriller and a horror novel after all.
Essentially a locked room mystery which is brilliantly taut and kept me at the edge of my seat.

The characters were likeable and you cared about them ... All the stars, a must read!

Having read my first Will Dean earlier this year (The Last Passenger) I was thrilled to have the opportunity to read this.
A locked-room, slow burn thriller that has you racing to find out more.
This was almost a four star for me but unfortunately the amount of detail about diving and the technology bored me.

I will start by saying that I will read anything Will Dean writes! The Chamber, while totally captivating and very clever, was not my cup tea. Too much technical detail and a slow burn felt like it dragged at times and added to its humdrumness (Yes, I think made up a word 😂) That said, if you enjoy claustrophobic settings and an utterly terrifying plot then give it a try. I was the outlier in our buddy read!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Publisher for my advanced reading copy 🙏

This was my first novel by Will Dean, and I've already been looking up his others! Absolutely gripping from the start, I loved it and have already been recommending it to friends who will probably be as messed up by its claustrophobic nature I was. Oh well :D

Because, as when I first watched 'The Descent', I had to keep putting this down for a breather inbetween chapters. Because yes, I am claustrophobic. But I've recently discovered I love the atmosphere of deep-sea horror. Blame all the fun recent Lovecraftian retellings, maybe?

This book is not fun. It's an adventure, absolutely, but it's a very human story of being trapped. A locked-room mystery of sorts, while also being the ultimate in inescapable - in a locked room beneath unimaginable amounts of pressure, where the slightest pinhole can mean (an unpleasant and messy) death.

The characters are excellently drawn, with our protagonist quickly becoming sympathetic for me given her history (I've worked in prisons), and the time spent at the start getting to know everyone, complete with their dark humour as a result of doing the Job Nobody Wants is very believable. Then when someone is revealed to (perhaps?) be a murderer, all bets are so very off.

The tension ramps up as fast as a diving bell plummetting to the ocean floor, and it did reach the point where I wanted to physically put the book down... but couldn't. The sense that if I did, the characters would perish was irrational but very real! I was caught and there with them, and my heart-rate suffered alongside.

An easy five stars and huge applause to an author at the top of his game.

This was a book of two halves for me. The first half was brilliant, I was sucked in from the start and couldn't stop reading. The claustrophobic atmosphere that Will Dean creates is brilliant and gets your imagination going. Unfortunately my interested petered out a bit in the second half and I wasn't overly bothered on finding out what had happened. I kept going though and the ending wasn't what I was expecting. A decent enough thriller but not one I'd rave about.

I was absolutely hooked on this from the first page, thrilling and twists that were cleverly thought out and executed

There was much to admire and enjoy in this book, but I think it was a case of personal taste, because I didn't quite click with it. I will read more from this author though.

Absolutely loved this book, I read it in one sitting! Will Dean perfectly sets the scene for this thriller and explains sat diving to the right level! I was hooked and didn’t guess what was going on at all. I always look forward to his books but this one surpassed my expectations!

Another brilliant & gripping thriller from this author.

A very unique premise with the author going into great detail.
Claustrophobic, intense with so much tension, you will struggle to put this down.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book and the tension ramped up well. However from about the halfway point, there seemed to be less peril than I expected and it went it a strange direction. I think the twist reveals got a little muddled and confused, and I’m not sure I understood what or if anything was resolved.

Oh my days. This book is like literally my worst nightmare. I had severe claustrophobic feelings reading this
This book was devoured in a small space of time as I was gripped by the storyline and the tenseness of the book.

Yet another great thriller delivered by this author, who in my opinion keeps getting better!

As ever Will Dean’s books are gripping and unique. Imagine being trapped under the sea in a tiny space with 5 other people. Then imagine they start dying….

The level of detail about the diving process is immense and very interesting. The plot is seamless, I was right there in the chamber with them, theories whirling round in my head.

Stories, old and new come out as time passes but will we ever get to the truth of who the killer was?

Another intensely claustrophic, read at one sitting novel from this incredibly talented thriller writer.