The Chamber was a fabulous book that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. I knew nothing about saturation diving before I read this book and the thought of being under the sea for a number of days (and then having to decompress for more days!) is a terrifying thought. This book covers such a team, locked together in their little capsule and it all goes disastrously wrong when, one by one, they start dying! It is like an underwater Agatha Christie plot, who is responsible, is it one of their support team? Is it someone inside the chamber? This book is well written and terrifying, I would recommend it to anyone. My only negative comment is that the ending was a little ambiguous and I think the identity of the killer could be a matter of discussion.

Wow that was all a bit tense! I must admit I was worried before starting The Chamber that my expectations were too high as I absolutely love Will Dean’s Tuva Moodyson’s series. I had also had enough of the standard repetitive stomach churning, limbs tingling and hairs standing descriptions of terror I seem to have waded through recently and was worried a locked room thriller couldn’t be done without an eye rolling excess of them.

I need not have feared… what an outstanding book! The description of life as a saturation diver was utterly fascinating and the claustrophobic conditions and terror experienced when things go wrong grabbed my imagination and literally left me gripping my Kindle. There was not a single eye roll which is down to the exceptional writing, imagination and obvious extensive research of the author.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy.

A very tense thriller which is based six saturation divers and what unfolds as they are based in the depths of the deep, dark sea working on the sea bed.

This is such a brilliant psychological tale, that keeps you in suspense. I know have a new found respect for saturation divers! A great book!

Six divers go down to the bottom of the North Sea sealed in a hyperbaric chamber. They will stay there for a month, working in shifts & breathing a mixture of nitrogen & oxygen to keep them at the same pressure as the exterior of the chamber. Once down there they are unable to return to the normal life until they have been through the slow process of returning to normal air. Failure to do so would kill them. The five men & one woman are very well paid but they earn their money. There is little space, it is hot & uncomfortable & you have to have complete trust in each other. When one of the divers is found dead in his bunk it is a shock to them all- but that is just the start.

Well that was intense! I couldn't stop reading to see if anyone was going to come out alive! Thoughts of life in a submarine fills me with horror, but The Chamber was a step beyond! Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book. Among my top reads so far this year.

Wow -edge of your seat stuff !
6 Deep Sea divers sealed inside a hyperbaric chamber whilst working on the ocean seabed .
On the very first day one of them is found dead in their bunk -and then there were 5 ....

Will Dean's stand alone thrillers are absolutely terrifying ! I can't get enough of them !!


Thankyou NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review

Will Dean's writing is always gripping, but I sadly didn't enjoy this as much as some of his earlier books. The 'locked room' element of the plot was thrilling, and the characters were all well and distinctly drawn, but although the divers were dropping like flies I didn't really feel I ever got the chance to develop my own theories about what was going on, and would have liked more clues, either genuine or red herrings, to make me feel more immersed. I will continue to autobuy everything he writes, but this one just fell slightly short for me.

Six divers are undergoing decompression in a hyperbaric chamber. Rapid decompression would be fatal so they have to remain calm and wait. Then one of them is found dead in his bunk. With 4 more days locked in the divers are agitated and restless. Then another diver goes down. Who or what is picking them off. Will anyone be left alive when the four days are up.

I initially struggled e to get into this one and felt a bit lost. I think possibly the jargon at the start took time to get to grips with even with the glossary to help. Once the story got going I was hooked. This would be a terrifying situation to be in. I was literally on the phone edge of my seat throughout and felt the terror and claustrophobia along with them.

Thank you to Netgalley, Hodder and Stoughton and Will Dean for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Chamber by Will Dean is an adrenaline fuelled, edge of your seat thriller that really did have me gripped from beginning to end. A very different type of read to his Tuva Moodyson series of books, this is a slow burn of a novel that gradually increases the tension as the story progresses. I had no idea just how palpably intense this page turner of a novel was going to get as the claustrophobic setting slowly takes hold of you by the throat and squeezes every last bit of air from your lungs.

The Chamber is a beautifully written, intense and surprising read, the tension slowly building as the divers find themselves increasingly in danger. The claustrophobic atmosphere of the hyperbaric chamber made me feel anxious as I put myself in the divers shoes, imagining what it would feel like to be trapped in a small space with no means of escape – and with the real possibility that not all of them will make it out alive…

On a boat in the middle of the North Sea, Ellen Brooke is about to spend a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber with five other divers. But little does she know that this dive is going to be unlike any she has ever done before. And as danger lurks in the depths who, if anyone, is going to make it out alive? With Will Dean’s trademark twists and turns, the story steadily gathers pace as the tension builds towards a denouement that is as shocking as it is thrilling.

I don’t want to say too much about the plot as to do so would take away from the impact of simply experiencing it for yourself. Will Dean’s writing is as mesmerising as ever as The Chamber’s secrets are slowly revealed in a suspense filled and unpredictable story that will keep you guessing throughout. And I loved it!

A dark and gripping psychological thriller, The Chamber is a claustrophobic and atmospheric tale that had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. Will Dean’s writing really does get better and better with every book and I can’t wait to see what he has in store for us next!

Highly recommended.

4.5 stars.

Claustrophobic, a book that takes your breath away and keeps you sitting on the edge of the chair because you don't know what will happen next and who can be the next or the culprit.
A fascinating, gripping, and twisty thriller that I strongly recommend.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

if you like a locked room mystery, then The Chamber is one you should have a look at. The Chamber is hyperbaric, inside is a crew of 6. A single unexpected death is unsettling but when a second follows it then shows a pattern. With no way out until the chamber has gone through decompression processes, there is nothing the crew can do apart from staying put. Staying put could kill them, escaping the chamber would definitely kill them.

The divers are introduced and there is a sense of camaraderie as most have worked with each other before. The style of diving is not for the weak-hearted or the inexperienced. It takes years of training to be allowed to work for the companies that operate in a hyperbaric chamber. The chamber is pressurised and once done it is lowered daily for any work to be completed. This means the divers are in the chamber for a month, the only time out is when they are many, many meters outside working, in this case in the North Sea on an oil rig.

The story is told by Ellen Brooke, the only female on board. She is documenting and recording the dive and so it makes her the ideal narrator for this book.

The author goes into a good amount of detail for the diving as far as the mixes of air, pressures, what happens at these extreme depths and what would happen if decompression was not done correctly. With a close-knit group, there are stories of previous jobs and experiences, these add something to each of the characters. It also explains the way each of them sort of sees life. Being at depth and under pressure takes a certain kind of mindset.

There is suspicion gradually builds and the crew of the chamber are not sure if it is someone inside or someone on board the ship who is responsible for the deaths. But whoever it is is being careful. As the story progresses you soon become aware of the tension and the stress that feels almost as claustrophobic as the interior of the chamber itself. This has been cleverly done and the constant awareness of the close quarters, the dangers and the depths has been worked in so well.

This is a fabulous story and one that I enjoyed, it is a great concept and has been worked well. A few key characters have issues of one sort or another. It's a mystery thriller that I would happily recommend.

I thought the concept to this one sounded so good! Something a bit different, with lots of potential in terms of atmosphere.

I must admit I struggled to visualise the whole setup as it’s a bit of a niche subject, so despite a bit of googling for help I think I found it hard to fully invest in the story because of that difficulty to visualise. I think this all just had a bit of a knock on affect because it meant I didn’t really feel the tension, nor did I invest too heavily in characters, so whilst I didn’t guess the culprit in this whodunnit, I also wasn’t blown away.

Definitely a case of me and not the book - I think Dean fans and thriller fans generally will enjoy this book, but for me it was just ok.

This was another incredible read by Will Dean, highly atmospheric it soon became addictive reading with the pages turning ever faster in my desperate need to find out what was going on, why and who was behind it all!
Due to having read some of this authors previous books I was highly suspicious of everyone including our narrator, wondering who was telling me the truth of the situation. As everyone's stories were told and the body count rose, it was looking more and more like one person was responsible to me and as they were still alive at the end of the book, well, I'll leave you to figure it out when you read this for yourself!
I went on an incredible journey with this book, it was so well written and easy to read that at times I was completely enveloped in the world on the pages I was reading. This author has the skill to not only draw you into his stories but to keep you there, enthralled by what is happening around you.
I really enjoyed this read and am looking forward already to my next adventure at the hands of this skilled wordsmith!

Will Dean is the absolute master of an edge of your seat story. The Chamber is no different!

It is eerie, claustrophobic and thrilling. I raced through it because I found it impossible to put down. What a brave and scary career these divers have!

Overall I found this book to be exceptionally well researched and the author has my admiration for this. However the amazing level of information about the unusual world of deep sea workers in the end proved a bit too much. So the tension was diluted by the minutiae of detail and it felt a bit of a slog if I’m honest.

First a general apology. I took the last week of May and the whole of June away from blogging. This was mostly because I was on a big bucket list holiday. I meant to do much more reading than I actually did, and I got no blogs written at all, contrary to my expectations. All of which is the mark of a fantastic holiday, but it does mean that I am horribly behind on my reviews, so I’ll be playing catch up for quite some time!
Apologies to publishers and authors whose books I should have reviewed by now.

As to Will Dean’s The Chamber, what can I say? This one had an extra resonance for me, because I read it while sailing the Pacific waters and the presence of all that water surrounding my ship added an additional sense of urgency to what is a beautifully written exploration of the pressures of living in a hyperbaric chamber sitting 100 metres down in the depths of the North Sea,

Six highly trained professional divers are locked into this tiny chamber, all of their lives in each other’s hands; their chamber controlled by the ship above and their return to the surface has to be managed with care and attention, with altered pressure as they rise to the surface very slowly in order to avoid decompression problems.

Mike, Jumbo, Andre, Spock, Tea-bag and narrator Ellen are locked together for a month, taking turns to work outside the chamber, each looking out for the safety of the diver of the day. In more than one sense it is a high pressure environment; one where the smallest mistake can have devastating consequences for them all. For Ellen, the only woman amongst the divers, there’s an extra pressure to make sure she works well as part of this male dominated team.

The sense of this kind of unique ‘locked room’ scenario is one of massive intensity and extraordinary claustrophobia, coupled with an enormous mental strain which takes its toll more than the physical challenges of the divers’ roles.

Sitting on the bottom of the North Sea they are isolated, vulnerable and living so closely with each other that there is no personal space; nowhere to take yourself off to when you’ve had enough of everyone else and no chance of an early exit.

These divers have to have total trust in each other; their lives and their safety are intertwined for the duration of this trip. Each has to be conscious of how their mood impacts on others.

So when a diver dies in the chamber, the tension, already palpable, rises to extraordinary levels. Is it natural causes or perhaps a suicide? The divers do not have the means to determine. All they know is that they are locked in their capsule with a corpse. Though the mother ship makes plans to bring them up, their decompression is a long, slow, four day process and impacts hugely on their mental state.

Then it gets worse: there is another death and then more. Sitting on my warm balcony, looking out at the sea, I could feel the darkness surrounding the remaining crew members, now getting justifiably more and more paranoid, trying to stay calm, suspecting each other as they remain helpless suspended in a cold, cruel sea. The shivers even on a hot and humid day were creeping up my spine.

Will Dean transmits all this through the thoughts and actions of Ellen, a woman in a man’s world, doing a mainly male job and having to hold her emotions together as she tries to work out what’s going on, now unable to trust anyone.

It’s a tremendous writing job by Will Dean and one that captivated me. The tension and suspense levels rise as the waiting time to full decompression seems to get longer and longer. It’s obvious now that things are seriously awry and that one of those remaining may well be a murderer – unless of course the real perpetrator is on the mother ship and somehow getting to those below through food or water or other supplies?

You just don’t know and it is that sense of dread; that waiting for the next diver to die, that makes it all so hard to penetrate. Dean fills in the blanks around the personal lives of some of the divers, but leaves us still wondering.

Never one to leave us short of surprises, Dean builds in some ‘gasp aloud’ moments and the end, when it comes, is profound, chilling and deeply uncomfortable.

Verdict: A cracking, well told locked room story with great characters, an immersive and astounding story which works incredibly well.

I absolutely loved The last thing to burn but after reading a few others books by Will Dean I wasn't so sure about him as an author. I'm glad I gave him another try as I really enjoyed the chamber.
6 divers are inside a hyperbaric chamber as they work as a team repairing oil pipes at great depths underwater. Then one dies. We don't know how or why and the tension builds as time ticks slowly by while the divers wait to be decompressed. The author convincingly creates the claustrophobic feeling the divers are experiencing as well as the fear that someone will be next. Are they being poisoned and if so by who?
I'm taking 1 star off as it felt a bit samey after a while and also I wasn't sure about the ending but otherwise a solid 4 stars from me.

I absolutely adore Will’s books so when I seen this I was praying I would be accepted.
I enjoyed the book overall!
You could tell Will had most definitely done his research on the subject matter and really wanted to do it justice, and I felt he did achieve that.
This book gives you all the feels, anxiety, suspenseful, gripping! I most definitely went through it all and not to meant the claustrophobia!
However I did feel it fell flat in places for me personally. And compared to his other books this wasn’t one of my favourites. But I would recommend and will most definitely continue reading from Will in the future

The Chamber by Will Dean was a thrilling, atmospheric and extremely unique story. As a fan of the author’s previous works I was very excited to receive an early copy of this one. This is an intriguing ‘locked room’ mystery with a twist. We are following a group of professional saturation divers who are embarking on an expedition to the bottom of the North Sea. This is partly an interesting and in-depth look at the lives and lifestyles of saturation divers and the conditions they work under. I found this to be extremely interesting and insightful and also admire the amount of research that must have gone into creating this story. I do think that the level of detail, as well as the use of specialist terms and jargon, may put some readers off but I found it to be a good balance. The other side of this story is a tense and claustrophobic mystery, as the divers start dying one by one it’s a race to find out what or who is causing this before they all succumb. Adding yet another layer to the mix is the inclusion of the backstories of the divers, their motivation for undertaking suck hazardous careers and discussions of the horror stories of previous disastrous dives. This is an extremely enjoyable and interesting book which I would highly recommend.
Thanks to Hodder and Stoughton and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this excellent story in exchange for an honest review.

If you have ever wondered what it is like to be at the bottom of the ocean, isolated in a small cabin not much bigger than a double bed with six people, this is the book for you.

Claustrophobia, intrigue , Hold your breath kind of anxiety, are all common features, regularly experienced whilst reading this compelling novel.
Will, Dean does not disappoint. As usual.
I’m glad I can breathe again.

Thanks to #NetGalley For the opportunity to read this book ahead of publication and exchange for an honest review.

This absolutely claustrophobic thriller is one I will think about for ages. I have a fear of the deep oceans & I am certainly no better after reading The Chamber (or my deep dive (!) into saturation diving).

I never know how Will Dean books will end but they certainly always end in some unexpected twist!

I love the uncertainty at the end of it. The questions left open make it all the more intriguing.

A quick fast paced locked room mystery!