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!

I really enjoyed this, very claustrophobic and tense. An interesting take on the closed-room murder-mystery theme. Six deep sea divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber in order to work at the bottom of the North Sea, where they will remain for four weeks. I learned at lot about saturation divers, the fears they live with should the seal of the chamber break or an accident occur and toll taken on their bodies both physically and mentally. The feelings of claustrophobia, vulnerability, fear, and danger create a wonderfully tense atmosphere.

The close conditions and lack of personal space create a special bond between divers, likened to military lifestyles. Your life can literally be in the hands of your teammates. After a death in the chamber, they are slowly raised raised to the surface but the divers must remain locked in during the decompression process. Four days with their deceased colleague. Then another one dies.

The pacing is brilliant, perhaps a little too much technical stuff for me but a very enjoyable thriller, I do like Will Dean's style of writing. Highly recommend.

Feel yourself succumbing to the claustrophobic paranoia with every page you turn. I recommend sitting by an open window while you read this one.

WoW!!!

The Chamber by Will Dean was soooo good I found it hard to put it down once I started to read it. This book will take your breath away and have you turning the pages to see what happens next.........It's full of brilliant twists and turns and they are right till the last page, You will keep questioning yourselfover and over again............Did that really happen down there at the bottom of the sea? Then you brain goes into over drive and bang! You will realise nothing is as it seems.

Wow what an explosion of an ending! I loved this book.

WoW The Chamber was so good it should be a made into a film........Superb book!

Big Thank you to Netgalley and especially Hodder & Stoughton for my ARC.

Ellen Brooke, an experienced diver is on her latest job onboard the Deep Topaz heading towards the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As she has done many times before, she is mentally prepared to spend 28 days amongst 5 others as they spend countless days decompressing in a hyperbaric chamber before being able to complete vial repair work to piping deep down below sea level, then decompressing again to be afterwards. The work is highly paid and highly dangerous, and one false move could be fatal. With the first dives completed and the team resting, one of them doesn’t wake up…no one has come in or out so their death is a mystery. With the outside team looking on there’s nothing they can do, decompression takes four days, that’s four days until the divers can be safely released. Being cramped in such a small space the divers are not sure who to trust, minds going into overdrive and dar thoughts creeping in, what is happening, and can they last the four days before someone else befalls the same fate?

Holy cow! This was one heck of a ride! There was a lot of breath holding and pulling of the collar whilst racing through the pages of this book! Absolutely brilliant storyline, Will clearly did his research on this topic and it shows! No small detail was missed out, and everything was well explained to the reader. I had no clue about anything to do with diving and it was great having a glossary at the beginning of the book, along with a map of the different parts of the ship and where the bell tower etc was. It really helped me picture in my mind what it might have looked like which was great for setting the scene in my head. Ellen is such a great character, I don’t want to give too much away, but I literally didn’t see coming all the twists and turns, I had no idea what was going on! The ending was fantastic a real thought provoking ending! I loved it!

Last Thing To Burn was my fave book of all time, so anything by Will is a must read for me, and this one was no different! Brilliant, I absolutely loved it!

A worthwhile aspect of any fiction work is to take you into a life context where you can gain new understanding of unusual settings and lifestyles. This is one such book - I learned a lot about deep sea diving. But this was also a gripping page turner. So well written I felt the claustrophobia and anxiety, even creeping paranoia. A great story.

This novel had a really intriguing premise that did not disappoint.
Ellen is a saturation diver on a mission with 5 other divers and they are effectively trapped in a tiny chamber for a month while completing a job. When the members of the crew start mysteriously dying, there is nothing to be done apart from wait for 5 days as the chamber decompresses before the remaining members of the crew can get out.
I felt the intense claustrophobia and panic right from the start and it only got stronger as the novel went on. The crew begin to question each other and they weren't able to trust anyone which makes for a deeply intense and suffocating read. There were quite repetitive bits in the story as there's only so much you can do in the chamber but about 2 thirds in the pace really picked up and I didn't want to put the book down.
This is a fresh take on the locked room mystery and you will be questioning everything you read right until the last page!

What drew me to this is my own intense fear of deep water & claustrophobia.
This turns it from just another thriller/ mystery to a “Horror” thriller/ mystery. And I love that!
This had everything. A really well written and thought out plot, excellent characters and not to mention the technical details that are given, to set the scene and give a proper understanding of what’s involved with this kind of work.
It all added up to the author providing an absolutely stellar novel. I’d highly recommend this one to others.

Up until the last few pages, I'd made up my mind that I was quite enjoying this: it's a little bit chokka with explanations about the severe constraints (and why) around saturation diving, but I kept telling myself they were necessary scene setters. However, I did welcome the relief of dialogue and action.

It's hard to imagine that in an environment where you can hardly move an elbow you wouldn't notice when someone was snuffing out members of a six-strong team, but that's what happens here.

Despite the dense forest of technical blurb to understand the complexity, risk and skill needed to be a saturation diver (all quite interesting and it seems to me the only reason you'd be a saturation diver is for the money because the rest of it sounds absolutely dreadful), there's a fairly decent story there, but it's a little heavy-going. The ending is confusing, and I'm not a hundred-per-cent sure who actually did it or why.

I've not read this author before. I can't deny that he can plot a story, but I couldn't engage with any of the characters despite their dramatic and disturbing back stories.

The ultimate locked-room mystery with non-stop suspense in this strong atmospheric thriller. Ellen is a deep sea diver who repairs oil pipes at the bottom of the North Sea. When she returns to the chamber after her first dive, one of her five colleagues is dead. They must now endure four days of decompression, each dependant on each other for survival but is there a killer amongst them? A nail-biting page-turner.

The Chamber is a unique take on the closed-room murder-mystery theme, best characterised by “And Then There Were None” by the incomparable Agatha Christie. What makes this story unique is the environment in which the deaths occur. Six deep sea divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber as it has descended to the bottom of the North Sea, where they will work for the next month.

Will Dean gives an authentic insight into the conditions felt by saturation divers, the consequences of the compression chamber breaking its airtight seal (ending up like “strawberry jam”), the fears they live with should a mistake happen, and the toll taken on their bodies both physically and mentally. The feelings of claustrophobia, vulnerability, fear, and danger create an atmospheric foothold that the story is deeply rooted in.

The claustrophobic conditions and loss of personal space create a special bond between divers that is as strong as a family, not unlike army units at war. Your life and well-being are literally in the hands of your colleagues as they partner on dives to the seabed or work to keep each other positive and focused.

After a death in the chamber, the submersible is raised to the surface, but the divers must remain locked in during the decompression process, which will take four days to complete. During those four days, other members of the crew start dying, and their bodies pile up in such a tight space. The anxiety and mental turmoil trying to rationalise the events and causes of the deaths are very well depicted and create an engrossing pace. Imagine in this environment of trust when the unthinkable reality sets in that maybe one of their unique family could be a murderer.

The story gave me great insight and admiration for deep-sea divers who spend weeks submerged in high atmospheric pressure conditions, breathing a mixture of oxygen and helium. For most of the book, I appreciated gaining this knowledge, but it kept coming and coming and coming—too much already!! Often, I felt this detracted from the murder mystery side of the narrative.

I recommend reading this book as it is unique and cleverly plotted, but it goes on too much on the technical side. I also want to thank Hodder and Stoughton, and NetGalley for providing a free ARC in return for an honest review.