I read The Chamber over the space of a few days whilst I was in bed unwell. Between dozing and lying feeling sorry for myself I would plunge into the bleak, claustrophobic world of these 6 Sat Divers who were dying one by one locked in a chamber! It was a fun filled few days!
The premise certainly had me interested but I think I struggled right from the start. I'm one of those people who can visualise a book playing out in my mind but because the environment this book takes place in is so unknown to me I had difficulties 'seeing ' it and placing characters. Secondly, whilst I totally understand that life for these divers is so rigid, monotonous and strict, that doesn't exactly make for gripping reading unfortunately. And lastly, these characters were so professional and calm when the deaths did start to occur that the incidents just passed in a dull way instead of creating an atmosphere of panic.
I did like the reveal that came at the very end. I genuinely didn't work it out at all and never would have done. But then I was left wondering why.
Overall this was an average read.

Claustrophobic, tense pressurised 'whodunnit' (and how) thriller.

I've loved the tension in the other two Dean titles I've read, now making his name a 'yes please' when I see a new title. And here not only was it a fascinating plot, but the setting meant I had an education in saturation diving.

A group of six divers are inside their hyperbaric chamber, the pressure is increasing as they prepare to work under the North Sea oil rigs in their well-paid but dangerous maintenance roles. With one woman amongst them, all are highly-trained and able to cope in the cramped and psychologically demanding conditions of the tiny chamber. Trust is imperative. Routines and organisation must be spot on. A team work outside the chamber round-the-clock to keep them alive and well.

But then... one diver is found in his bunk, not breathing. The team can't open the doors, the death can't be investigated fully and they can't leave.

And what if the first isn't the last?

My god, this was tense! Trying to work out if someone on the outside or the inside might be causing the deaths (and how??). As you'd expect, the close confines and suspicious causes rifts, arguments and breaches in what needs to be one of the most trusting teams there is. Can anyone make it out alive, once the slow process of returning the chamber to surface level pressure has finally been completed?

And breathe. I loved the experience of reading this, of looking up from the pages at the free air, sunshine, large room where I could walk freely... and remember it was 'just a book'. Some great characters and backstories here (there is no note from the author to explain what research was done, if characters/histories are real, but I suspect they may be). You are constantly guessing who you can trust, what has happened to kill the divers, who might make it out in the end.

There are very sad moments of reveal, and I was glad the eventual denouement wasn't disappointing, though I had more questions.

I also have now a great deal of appreciation for those doing such dangerous jobs in the real world.

Excellent 'can't read this fast enough' uniquely-set story.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

On a boat heading out into the North Sea, Ellen Brooke steels herself to spend almost a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber with five other saturation divers
All is going swimmingly (see what I did there) until one of the divers becomes unresponsive and the chamber is forced to return to the surface earlier than planned. But first they must spend a further four days decompressing in order to safely eliminate the gases built up in their bodies.
This was another cracking book from this author on the back of the brilliant The Last Passemger which was one of my favourite reads last year.
The subject I found fascinating and original , particularly given the recent Titanic submersible disaster.
6 divers living together for 5 days in a very compact space makes for a very claustrophobic and tense atmosphere and at least one of them isn't the person they claim to be This situation can make divers think and act in a very strange manner.. Each of the divers are suspicious of each other at times as events spiral out of their control but still they have to remain suspended at depth for several more days.
This was a real page turner and educational as a bonus. I do like a book with all the ends neatly tied up and the only thing for me that let it down was the ending which was very open and confusing. I kept clicking to turn the page on my Kindle before realising the book had actually ended.
Thank you to the publisher and author for the opportunity to read this early copy.

I have read a couple of Will Dean's previous books and have enjoyed them and this was no exception.

The Chamber is a take on the 'locked-room' genre but with a difference; six divers are locked in a hyperbaric chamber ready to start their four week shift working on oil lines in the depths of the Atlantic. All seems to be going to plan until one of the divers is found dead ... then another - what is going on? Are they being picked off one by one? Who is doing it? One of the divers or someone from the outside? So many questions!

Written from the perspective of Ellen Brooke, one of the very few female deep sea divers; this book is full of atmosphere and tension and whilst it has quite a bit of "technical-speak" at the beginning, it's necessary for the story and clearly Will Dean has done an awful lot of research as it felt authentic to me.

With great characters, oodles of tension and a real sense of claustrophobia, this is a great thriller that kept me guessing right until the end and afterwards and many thanks to the author, Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of The Chamber.

Thanks to @netgalley for my ARC.
Will Dean entertains me every year with his original books, starting with the brilliant The Last Thing to Burn. So I couldn't wait to dive back into his creative world.

Did it hit the mark? Not for me!

Personally, I think the blurb for this book is a little misleading. It is labelled as a thriller and described as an And Then There Were None locked-room mystery. My absolute favourite! It reminded me of Dean Koontz's brilliant thriller Icebound, but the similarities end with the authors' names.

I was expecting a breathless, adrenaline-fuelled whodunnit thriller with a countdown to find the killer before everyone died. Instead, I felt it to be rather repetitive, not much happened, apart from endless conversations about past jobs in between someone dying. Moreover, I felt no urgency, panic or particular suspicion on the part of the MC. In fact, the atmosphere in the hyperbaric chamber where the subjects are locked up to await desaturation was rather amicable until the very end.

I didn’t mind that the ending was left to interpretation, although I think it was pretty clear who committed the murders!

On a side note, you can't help but admire the research Dean must have put into this book, even if I was sometimes overwhelmed by the technical explanations. But if you like diving and love claustrophobic environments, I invite you to enter Ellen Brooke's world of deep diving and enjoy the swim.

I would like to point out that I am in the minority here with my opinion. I have read rave reviews for this book, so obviously I missed the essence of this novel.

I always look forward to a Will Dean release.. This one however I didn't enjoy as it was too technical and I didn't even really see it is as thriller. I can see how others would enjoy it but for me I found it too slow and bogged down with unimportant information.

I usually enjoy Will Dean’s books so was delighted to receive an advance copy to review. Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for my copy.

The Chamber is mostly set in a saturation diving chamber and is told from the point of view of Ellen Brooke, a rare female diver. In a very confined space with five other divers for up to a month, it’s not a profession for the faint hearted! When one diver dies, and then another, it becomes clear that something is very wrong. Who can be trusted and who’s to blame? Human error, technical fault, or someone with malicious intent?

For being set in one location for pretty much the whole book, the author does well to keep it pacy and apart from a small section, it didn’t feel boring or drag. I liked a couple of the characters but didn’t feel particularly invested in any of them, possibly because it’s all from Ellen’s point of view. All the characters seemed to have their flaws and their reasons for being so dedicated to the job.

Will Dean has clearly done a lot of research into the profession as it’s something most people wouldn’t know much about. There’s a helpful glossary at the start of the book.

The whole book felt tense and unsettling and the feeling of claustrophobia is evident throughout. If I’d had the time I would have read it in one sitting! I couldn’t work out what was going on and was desperate to find out what had happened. Maybe because of this, I felt the ending was a little underwhelming but I think it’s ambiguous enough to keep you thinking and make you question if Ellen is a reliable narrator.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it. It’s a different take on the locked room mystery.

4.5 stars

With The Chamber, Will Dean has taken the locked-room thriller to another level, if not to a completely new dimension. I finished it in one breathless, nerve-jangling sitting and promptly joined the chorus of voices saying, ‘What the heck have I just read?’

The premise alone is enough to put you off enclosed spaces for life.

A team of saturation divers is locked inside a tiny hyperbaric chamber on a service boat, from where they will alternate shifts in a diving bell to carry out maintenance on an oil pipeline on the seabed. It’s a job they’ve done dozens of times before, and one that relies on absolute, mutual trust, not just amongst the divers but between the divers and the support team on the boat.

What happens to that trust when one of the six divers is found inexplicably unresponsive in his bunk and subsequently dies? How will the others cope for the four days it takes to decompress the chamber and safely let them out? Are they all at risk? Is there something in the air they’re breathing, in the food they’re eating? Or is there a murderer in their midst?

This was one crazy ride. Claustrophobic to the point of suffocating, it builds up slowly, then takes off like a runaway train, the twists and turns coming thick and fast, as the divers try to control their mounting panic and suspicions.

Too terrified to sleep, or to eat or drink anything that doesn’t come pre-sealed, the surviving divers pass the time by sharing war stories of past diving catastrophes and near misses, and in the process expose the deep mental scars each carries. As the hours count done amid further horrifying events and revelations, the tension mounts to an unbearable level.

More than anything, what makes this such a riveting read is Dean’s exhaustive research and the descriptive detail this brings to the narrative. The resulting authenticity is visceral.

But it’s the ending that delivers the sucker punch. As with The Last Passenger, it’s sure to divide opinion. Much is left unresolved. Questions abound. Many readers will be left bewildered and frustrated. For me, though, it’s another master stroke by Will Dean. One that forces us to think beyond the limitations of a standard whodunnit and focus more on the journey and the passengers than on the destination. Read it and let me know what YOU think.

Reading this book was an emotional journey for me. It was totally different from what I expected from a thriller. For many, it might not even qualify as one. However, I loved how the main character struggled every day, making her story incredibly relatable and poignant.

The setting in the Saturn chamber was fascinating. While some might find it claustrophobic, I loved the quiet and silence it offered. It felt like a refuge, a stark contrast to the chaotic world outside. The depiction of divers living wildly and the various intertwined stories of military life added layers of complexity to the narrative.

The protagonist's inner battles truly moved me. Her resilience in the face of relentless challenges broke my heart. The way she confronted her fears and demons was both haunting and compelling. Her struggle wasn’t just physical but deeply emotional, resonating with my own experiences of facing personal difficulties.

The ending, however, divided readers, and I understand why. I, too, found it hard to believe what really happened. It wasn’t the conclusion I expected, and it left me with mixed feelings. But perhaps that’s the mark of a powerful story—it stays with you, leaving you to ponder its implications long after you’ve turned the last page.

Overall, this book's emotional depth and unique setting made it a memorable read for me. It’s a story that lingers in the mind, challenging you to think and feel deeply.

Holy schmoly! What a ride this book was. I'm not usually a fan of 'action' oriented novels and tend to skim over fight scenes and the like, even when the author obviously knows their stuff. Having said that, in the last couple of years I've enjoyed TJ Newman's heart-in-mouth novels involving plane-based drama. I know one or both are being translated onto the big or small screen and I can see why. The Chamber by Will Dean blew me away for similar reasons. It's a literal pressure cooker of a novel - centred around a saturation diving crew - in a sardine can 100m below the ocean's surface. Their work is dangerous enough but throw in some suspicious deaths and you've got an extraordinary locked-room mystery.

Our narrator is Ellen Brooke, the only female member of the six-person dive crew, and through her we meet her colleagues, four of whom she knows well and has worked with often. We also meet some of their 90+ person support crew who we learn very literally hold our divers' lives in their hands. The tiniest of errors could cause the divers' world to implode or freeze them to death in seconds.

The level of detail Dean includes here - in relation to saturation diving and life lived in a chamber - is spectacular. Like I said I'm usually a skimmer but I found some of the information fascinating, such as the level of precision needed to pump hot water into wet suits while diving and the fact the divers are breathing heliox so those on the surface need an unscrambler to understand them!

There are a couple of other characters we meet a few times, including the expedition medic and the crew's boss who many have worked with before. Later we also meet a detective who boards the diving support vessel to investigate the deaths. There are of course also references to loved ones and families of the divers. Working in such close proximity and their need to depend on each other, means there's a strong level of camaraderie and trust.

I was already hooked as Brooke and another diver are the first sent down in the diving bell to do something or other as part of the repairs to an oil rig. Despite their significant experience there are several close calls - Dean delivering very edge-of-your-seat stuff for breathless readers.

And then one of the divers is found dead. There's no overt cause and it's assumed it's something to do with their health. Until another diver dies... and then we've moved beyond a coincidence. Because we've been given precise information about how food is passed through decompressed airlocks and water is pumped into the wet room/pot we pretty much know the chamber is impenetrable.

So this is the quintessential locked-room mystery because WHY and WHO are not the only questions... but HOW becomes important. Dean certainly keeps us guessing even as suspects start to dwindle and nerves are tested. And even though we're ultimately handed the answers... he deftly adds in a few so-quick-you-may-have-missed-it twists that could be frustrating, but are instead very very clever and may have readers pondering long after finishing.

I should mention that Dean also considers some deeper themes around work-related pressure and anxiety, its impact on families as well as grief and loss.

This was an excellent read from Will Dean. Really well written and with a growing feeling of extreme claustrophobia throughout, as a group of 6 deep sea divers are locked in a small hyperbaric chamber so they can work on oil lines. All is well until one of them is found dead in his bunk! 4 days are needed to decompress the chamber before they can be freed and in the meantime the distrust and suspicion amongst the divers grows…as does the body count. A gripping read!

This is my 2nd book by Will Dean and I really enjoyed it a great thriller that kept me guessing throughout with no idea where it was going would definitely recommend

The author takes to familiar waters after previous novel The Last Passenger – only this time instead of being above sea level we're diving deep deep below. Essentially a very locked room mystery, this tense tale follows main protagonist Ellen in her latest dive just off the North Sea. But we're only one dive in when disaster strikes and one of the six crew members dies. What follows is a four day decompression to avoid the bends in the smallest of spaces. But what if there's another catastrophe looming?

I hate confined spaces and water so this is the stuff of nightmares for me. The remaining crew are affected by an unknown enemy – is it the air they're breathing and if it is, is this accidental or is foul play at work. Each character has their own story so there's much background to be covered. And why not – there's four days until they can breath fresh clean air again.

I could feel every breath and movement made in the Chamber, adding to the claustrophic feel of the novel. Space is tight. Movement is limited. And when dealing with dead bodies that is totally not the environment you want to be in. You’ll be hit with a lot of technical information here so remember and read the author foreword to get a handle on the diving jargon. There's also nice little nods to technology of the early 2000s when it's set (Nokia phones, Snake, and a well-timed joke about a Jodie Foster movie of the time – well played Will).

As with any Will Dean novel, there are twists a-coming. And an ending that may well divide casual readers and fans alike.

But guaranteed, following one incident you'll never look at Raspberry Jam in the same light again.

Will Dean has once again produced a well-paced original thriller. This time, we meet Ellen Brooke who has a job as a specialist diver, known as Saturation divers, who go for long stints to work on deep sea projects repairing oil pipes. Dean describes in detail, the truly claustrophobic living and working conditions where the divers are literally on top of each other. The tense atmosphere is bad enough but when they start dying one-by-one, the result is breath taking. The level of detail on the living conditions and on the effect of the pressures on equipment as well as physiological effects is impressive. From a medical perspective, Dean is an excellent researcher and acutely accurate in his narrative of medical-related events. Usually one-room dramas are predictable and lack originality but not this one. Read it but remember to keep breathing.

Enjoy locked room thrillers? Try fitting six divers into a small chamber deep underwater. Talk about no escape!

I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called Last Breath which is about a diver who went missing on the ocean floor, which quite literally took my breath away. So this book instantly reminded me of this, although I'm very glad that it didn't follow the same story and instead took its own twists and turns.

Having seen this documentary, I liked having a little knowledge about how these divers had to prepare for and live in these small spaces underwater. But I definitely didn't need any prior knowledge, as Dean scrupulously details everything, so I could easily imagine their surroundings, feel their tension, and experience their confinement.

The setting immediately adds a suffocating atmosphere and I really enjoyed getting to experience it for myself. And then, of course, there's a death, and things escalate quite quickly from there. Is this natural causes? Influence from outside the chamber somehow? Or the actions of someone inside?

The story really kept me guessing, and I loved having to question every character. However, I really had no idea, so I don't feel like I was able to play the game of whodunnit very well. Overall, I think Dean's focus here was more on research, getting the details right, and exploring a situation that could be very real rather than giving the story any grittier twists which is what I usually love about his books.

This sense of Ellen's impeding doom is the only thing that felt lacking for me. She felt far too held-together for me, whilst I needed a little more haziness and fear in her narrative for it to steal my breath away. So while it missed out slightly on that shock factor for me, his attention to detail and authenticity are 10/10 for sure, and it's great to read a thriller in this setting.

The ending is another one from Dean that may split audiences, but I love that he manages to do this to us every time! He's certainly an author I always look forward to reading!

Ouf, I was so bored throughout this whole thing. I literally have nothing nice to say about this book and I'm utterly disappointed cause I was so intrigued by the premise :/

Not my cup of tea!

A tense extreme locked room thriller. I am a big fan of Will Dean but this one was let down by a really weak ending.
I was totally immersed - sweaty palms and all - with the concept of the deep sea divers locked in their pressurised container at the mercy of an unknown murderer - but the reveal when it came was disappointing and underwhelming. It won’t put me off reading another by the same author though.

Ellen Brooke is a saturation diver in the North Sea. She has a husband and two children at home, but she loves her job so much that she wishes to encourage other females into the extremely dangerous profession of saturation diving. That’s why she brings a camcorder to record everything and then turn it into a short film.

Her next job is off the coast of Aberdeen, in the North Sea. She is to spend a month locked away in a chamber with five other men: Mike, Jumbo, André, Spock, and Tea-Bag. Their living quarters are cramped, as they are literally sitting on top of each other.

Their only respite is when they are allowed out into the water to work at the bottom of the sea bed, each shift lasting eight hours.

When Ellen and her co-worker return from their shift, they find one of the men unresponsive in his bunk. They soon realise that the man is dead.

Who is responsible for this? Someone on the outside, or, dare I even say, someone who’s inside the chamber?

This was such a tense and claustrophobic read! I definitely got the Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None vibes when they all started to die, one by one. I was so anxious, even reading about their living conditions and what their job required them to do. I know it was their choice, and they got paid handsomely for it, but the idea of being stuck with five males in a small chamber just filled me with dread.

There are some nice twists along the way, which I certainly didn’t expect.

Overall, it is another great read from Will Dean. I definitely recommend it!

Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton for approving my NetGalley request to read and review this title.

If I could have, I would have read this book in one sitting. By coincidence I started reading the moment our tv was on, showing the launch of the Starliner. Images from the capsule showed two astronauts, all suited up, eagerly waiting to be on their way. Astronauts are very fit, very brave people who need to be kept alive with a great deal of instruments, people and most of all oxygen. The sat divers in Chamber are also very fit, very brave people who have to be kept alive, but not by oxygen, but by a mixture of gasses. Should anything happen to either the space capsule or the diving bell, the people in it are doomed.
Main character in this thrilling story is Ellen Brooke; she’s in her early forties and a very experienced diver. Stat divers start out as oxygen divers, but when they want to go sat diving – because they really like the work and the pay – they have to have more extensive training and a whole lot more experience. Just like astronauts, they form strong bonds with each other and the people that are there to keep them alive.
The astronauts in the Starliner experienced some problems but are, the day I’m writing this review, safely aboard ISS.
Ellen Brooke and her crew are not so lucky. Before long, one of the six crew members dies and instead of happy working on the seabed, the other five have to take care his body makes it safely to the mother ship.
From then on, the tension really sets in. While the author explains to the readers a lot of the technical and very interesting ins and outs of sat diving, the now five people abord have nothing else to do than sit and wait. They spend a lot of time thinking back about the start of their careers and the other dives they made. It is fascinating reading material – although I knew some basic facts about the material, physical and mental side of deep diving, I learned a lot from this book. And then a second crew member dies and the story suddenly is not about material, physical or mental issues, but all about the question: is there a murderer among the four crew members still alive?
Expect revelations, some of them rather sudden, and expect to learn about life and loss of life. Even if you think it is all a bit too technical for you, just read the book – all will be explained.
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for this review copy.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing a review copy of this book.

The Chamber was released yesterday, if you are a fan of Will Dean you probably know that already. Written in his usual style this one will certainly tick all the boxes for a lot of people. If you are in any way claustrophobic you might want to steer clear. Six Saturation Divers enter what is supposed to be their home for the next month. The job? Repairing and checking pipe lines at the bottom of the North Sea. They are locked in the Chamber as they need to be at the same compression as the sea around them, essentially so they don’t explode horribly. I learned about The Bends long ago (from Baywatch and Radiohead) but there are other, more horrifying ways to die when working in the ocean.

So we saddle up with our narrator, Ellen, and her five male co-workers. It is explained quite early on that there are very few women in this job, so the ratio is not a surprise for the industry. Ellen takes us through some industry standard explanations of what is happening, and all is going well, until it isn’t. Someone gets hurt, and they have to come back up – but it takes 4 days to decompress. If they open the doors too soon, they will die… but being stuck in close quarters with 4 other people and a dead body is no picnic. Just what happened to her co-worker?

An excellent who-dunnit that gave me a locked in feeling. I raced through it just so I could feel like I could breathe again. Recommended for fans of thrillers/mysteries.