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.

📖 Book Review 📖

The Chamber by Will Dean
Hodder & Stoughton, 6th June 2024

In this tense psychological thriller, six likeable characters are enclosed in a decompression chamber for over a week after saturation diving, working on the sea bed.

Full of suspense, mystery, and heart-stopping moments, this book is typical of the author's deft prose. It's a fascinating and chilling insight into the underwater world of hyperbaric chambers and saturation diving, which I enjoyed immensely.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Will Dean for providing an eARC via NetGalley; this is my honest review.

#TheChamber #WillDean #HodderBooks #HodderAndStoughton #NetGalley #BookReview #ARCReview #BookCommunity #Bookstagram

The thought of me being a deep sea diver has literally never crossed my mind and it’s safe to say that after reading The Chamber, it’s not the job for me!

Will Dean does a terrifyingly good job at making you feel claustrophobic and trapped whilst you’re reading this story of six divers sent deep under the ocean to maintain oil rigs.

Ellen Brooke is there for a month with her fellow diving crew, six of them cramped into a tiny space where they must sleep, eat, wash and keep themselves entertained as well as carry out life threatening arduous work deep under water.

I was so engrossed whilst reading, even the thought of being stuck so far under the water for such an extended period of time- hideous to think about. And when mishaps & worse start happening on board, despite the crew’s intense vigilance , there is no way to get them out quickly.

Another nail biting tense read from Will Dean

To start with, I really have to applaud the fact that Will Dean took on a subject for the book that must have needed a huge amount of research to get right. There were lots of technical details to include and work into the setting on top of a more typical murder mystery. Because the diving is such an integral part of the book, it was important for this to feel right, and I personally felt like I was living and experiencing it all alongside the group of divers.⁣
⁣
There are really not many books that I can remember reading which have given me that horrific feeling of dread the whole way through the story, but this one was very successful. The sense of claustrophobia is unreal and I felt that kick in right at the end of the first chapter until the very last page.⁣ It was obviously quite an intense storyline to follow but I was actually surprised at how creepy it also was to read - the ultimate locked-room murder mystery with an extra layer of horror on top! There was just something about the book - the isolation, the cramped chamber, the danger and the fear that made this such an unsettling read.

Awesome, he’s done it again. A steady trickle of fact and fiction as the reader holds their breath on a path deep into the unknown. As if the setting isn’t enough, Will Dean throws in so many possible curveballs that you just can’t predict what’s going to happen next. Brilliant from start to finish, an eerie setting deep in the ocean where everything is not as it seems. I held my breath as this book blew me out of the water. Another 5* page-turner.

Every book from Will Dean is different. So well researched down to the smallest detail. Who could ever imagine a tense drama happing within a diving chamber. Well obviously Will Dean could. A brilliantly executed drama that ratchets up the tension slowly . As the reader we were also experiencing the countdown until decompression took hold.As well as tension the human interest stories of each of the divers was interesting
A nail biting scenario

Wow! What a book - Will Dean at his very best. This is one of the best "locked room" thrillers I have read.

6 saturation divers embark on a job in the North Sea that is about to turn into a terrifying nightmare, with no easy escape.

I found the insight into the world of saturation diving utterly fascinating. There was a great deal of research and I learnt a lot. I have a new found respect for the people who undertake this hard and challenging career!

The Chamber is narrated by Ellen, one of the few women in the world who work as a saturation diver. I thought it was brilliant that Will chose to have a woman as the main character in what is obviously a very male dominated industry and used the opportunity to drive home the underlying message that women can do whatever a man can.

As the story unfolds, the stifling claustrophobia, paranoia and unbearable tension created had me absolutely tearing through the pages, with my heart racing.

Really clever, really pacy and unforgettable, I throughly recommend this book.

Having read Will Deans previous books I knew I was in for a delight and what a ride

I was engrossed I lost track of time he is such an immersive storyteller 5 stars

Mr Dean and I have a complicated relationship. I adore his writing but I absolutely hate the things he puts me through, the suspense, the fear and also the rather impatient anticipation when I’m waiting for a new book.

I didn’t even read the blurb before jumping into this but immediately found myself pulled in by the fantastic world-building, the setup of a creeping tension and anxious energy. Taking a situation that would scare most people - living beneath the depths of the ocean and tapping into that fear, utilising the water almost as another character full of life and able to plot against us, with each small description or detail painting such a vivid picture. This entire tale takes place almost exclusively in a little tin capsule dangling in the abyss, and somehow the story keeps a brilliant pace and the scene feels electrifying, and even more claustrophobic when the bodies start to fall and there’s nowhere for them to fall.

Our narrator is brilliant- explaining the rules and customs of being a saturation diver without feeling like they’re just dumping information on us. Brooke clearly loves her job as an aquanaut, relishes the beauty of nature and respects its danger - that awe and wonder shines through the way she sees the world at the beginning. I also have to commend Dean for always managing to so respectfully and brilliantly writing from a women’s perspective, and always creating three-dimensional, complex women as his leading ladies.

I found the ending not quite what I’d hoped, I loved the parallels and the murkiness but it felt almost like it just “faded to black” and never really felt finished to me but that didn’t change the fact that the first 90% of this book was absolutely addictive.

Get ready for the single most intense locked room mystery you’ve ever read - and if you’re claustrophobic or love clear-cut resolutions, maybe give this one a miss.

Will Dean's The Last Passenger was one of my favourite reads last year.  I'm also gradually working my way through his back catalogue so you could say I'm a fan. 

The Chamber is a locked room thriller about six saturation divers who are working a job in the North Sea when disaster strikes. One of the team is found dead in their bunk. Unable to continue on as planned, the long days of decompression begin before the chamber can be safely opened and the divers released but who will be left alive? 

As someone who isn’t keen on enclosed spaces this book was an absolute NIGHTMARE. Will Dean researched this topic so well that I could honestly picture being stuck in this situation and had to keep taking breaks because it was making me anxious 😂 but it’s a fantastic read! Please pick it up

5 Stars from me!

Having read and been forever traumatised by loved The Last Thing to Burn, I am always reluctant keen to read a new Will Dean book and so was delighted to find The Chamber.

The tension that pours out from the pages of this book is immeasurable. 

I was already on edge once I realised that Ellen was in the chamber with five male divers, that set me on the journey to feeling uncomfortable right from the get go. Add in the dangers - everywhere - so many dangers. Add in the fact that there can only be an excruciatingly slow ascent back to the surface if anything goes wrong, and you are already reading and tense and highly pressured book.

But.

Then add in that one by one members of the team start to die and suddenly this becomes hell on earth (well, hell in the sea). I trusted NO ONE and simply had to keep reading as the painfully slow timers ticked down. 

The Chamber is yet another Will Dean masterpiece and I am already recommending it to people - shortly followed by the words (in a lower, more sombre voice) did you ever read The Last Thing to Burn...

Huge thanks to @NetGalley for an ARC copy in return for an honest review.