As someone with claustrophobia this book was an absolute NIGHTMARE. Will Dean wrote this so well that I could honestly picture being stuck in this situation and had to keep taking breaks because it was making me anxious! 💀 The plot was a tiny bit slow in certain areas but overall this was absolutely excellent and I'll definitely be reading more of Will's books!

Oh this was fantastic. Filled with tension and claustrophobia and even all the diving detail (which wouldn’t normally be my thing!) only added to the drama. The writing is excellent.

The Chamber is a fascinating, addictive book. I knew nothing about saturation diving and the level of detail in this book is really interesting.
Six divers are saturation diving in the North Sea, living together in a small diving chamber. One of them suffers a quick death and from there we're taken on a tale of suspicion and survival.
The worst thing about Will Dean's books is that they have to end. Absolutely brilliant!

Imagine having to share a chamber the size of the average family bathroom with 5 other adults for a month, then have that chamber get slowly deeper under the North Sea. I felt claustrophobic within the first few pages as we are introduced to the divers while they are gradually descending, and that claustrophobia did not let up throughout!

With at least 4 days decompression needed to get back in to the surface, when tragedy strikes, this turns into the ultimate locked room mystery. With a small cast of characters, it can't be that difficult to work out who is responsible, can it?

With slow-building tension and the permanent oppressive feeling of being trapped, this was a good mystery with some great characters. I loved all the nicknames and sharing stories of previous experiences. I also had no idea that this work going on at sea beds across the world was so prevalent and it was interesting to learn more about it.

Based in an underwater chamber, six sat divers begin a month of deep sea work. The fear factor begins immediately with detailed descriptions of the extreme dangers of these types of missions. I felt uncomfortable, tense and claustrophobic but couldn’t stop reading this well written book. The dangers become all too real when tragedy strikes and as the work is aborted a four day decompression begins. As the crew adjust to the tragedy they need to keep as normal as possible to avoid panic, anger or suspicion. Without giving away too much, this book was a real rollercoaster of emotions that surprisingly delivered on every page. I couldn’t imagine how the story could develop and keep my interest but it did. I knew very little about diving and had no idea how involved and dangerous it really is. I now have nothing but respect and admiration for those who work in this hostile environment. My only slight criticism and this should not stop anyone reading this excellent book, is that the ending was a little ambiguous.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of this story and the isolated setting. But I got confused with the unreliable narrator and what the point was. I also thought it was a super slow burn.

Another brilliant thriller from Will Dean. Tense, claustrophobic, breathless.

Thanks for this advance copy.

4.5⭐️

The Deep Topaz is a vessel that houses divers working on the oil lines using a submersible bell.
They live in a pressure chamber for the period of their rotation which is a month. They then take it in turns to dive and work in pairs. I love the term aquanaut

It takes 4 days for the pressure to decompress so they are very contained with no quick way out.
I found the work of these sat divers fascinating along with the number of support crew that it takes to keep them safe.

There’s quite a lot of names bandied about early on plus nicknames so I made a list.

Well that was a wild ride! It kept me riveted throughout. I liked the way that the author incorporated diving disaster stories. The ultimate locked room mystery for sure, imaginatively handled. Well done 👏

I found the character’s interesting, their working environment totally fascinating, it felt like the author had done very thorough research.

I don’t know how I feel about the ending. I need to reflect on it.

4.25*

6 divers locked together in a pressurised hyperbaric chamber. Sealed away from the world for a month to conduct deep water pipe repair work, this close knit team has to work and live together and trust each other with their lives. Only it doesn't quite go to plan and after the discovery of a dead team member, suspicions rise, paranoia creeps in and the remaining team face 4 days of depressurisation wondering who did and who could be next.

The Chamber works really well as an incredibly tense and claustrophobic locked room thriller. It's a slow burn story until about 40% in when the action starts to rise but that slower pace does serve to build a vivid picture of life in what is a pretty unique story setting. There is a little repetition in the narrative during this point but it also serves to highlight the rinse and repeat nature of the team's lives in that confined space.

The nature of the story being a locked room, you know as a reader that you can't believe everything being laid out in front of you and I think Brooke makes for a great unreliable narrator (a trope that when done well, as it is here, I love). I found myself compulsively reading as I couldn't figure the how of the situation. That my feelings echoed the bewildered and frankly traumatised team, meant I was trying to work out the mystery along with them. I felt their frustration as things didn't seem to work despite their best efforts and I felt that sense of mistrust as the group shrank.

Despite this build up the ending when it came fell a little flat for me, it was a little too ambiguous and didn't quite have the wow factor because of it. However, it has stayed in my mind and I have mulled it over ever since so with a little distance from the initial reading experience I would say that it's pretty effective despite that initial sense of disappointment.

Thriller and locked room mystery fans won't be disappointed in this book - just remember to breathe as you read because that claustrophobic setting is the absolute star of the show.

Thank you to Netgalley and Hodder and Stoughton for a digital review copy of "The Chamber" in exchange for my honest and voluntary review.

Six divers are in a hyperbaric chamber in order to repair oil pipes on the sea bed, when one of the group is found unresponsive. They must wait four days before they can be safely brought back to the surface, but they soon find themselves pushed to their limits.

This was everything I have come to expect from a Will Dean novel – it was clever, exciting and utterly terrifying.

You get an immediate sense of the danger that divers face on a daily basis and just how risky it is as a job. The descriptions of the chamber made it feel so tense and claustrophobic. I really felt for those characters as they were stuck in such conditions.

I was put on edge by this book, so much so that I found myself gripping the Kindle really tightly when I was reading the most tense parts!

The Chamber is a brilliant thriller that left me speechless.

Thank you NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

What an intense, terrifying thriller this was! I LOVED The Last Passenger, the last third of which was utterly bonkers, so I had very high hopes for The Chamber. I read the majority of this on a plane on a night flight which definitely set the mood! It's a classic claustrophobic, closed room thriller. Initially, I found the repetition of some phrases and personal histories a bit odd, but as you're dragged into Ellen's rapidly deteriorating mind it starts to make more sense. Her backstory reveal was timed to perfection and the ambiguity of the final few pages was fantastic - I've just re-read them again and I'm still not altogether clear what happened! Another amazing read from Will Dean. Biggest thanks to NetGalley, Will Dean and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC.

The Chamber by Will Dean
I give this book 4.75 stars.

HIGH PRESSURE OUTSIDE
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 divers. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust could be catastrophic.

EXTREME PRESSURE INSIDE
All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk.Four days of bare steel, intrusive thoughts, and the constant struggle not to give way to panic.And if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies...

Excellent! Outstanding! ……. I couldn’t put this page turner down!
The author’s writing style and superb plotting and pace always has me on the edge of my seat. A perfect mix, the tension and dread are palpable and the atmosphere is totally claustrophobic. I became immersed in Brooke the only woman on boards narrative right from the start. The author had obviously done a lot of research on SAT diving and i enjoyed learning something I had no knowledge of. Six go down but how many return. Would i recommend this,absolutely to everyone but especially if you enjoy a locked chamber mystery
With thanks to Netgalley,Will Dean and Hodder and Stoughton for my chance to read and review this book.

OMG, I couldn’t breathe, literally. The thought of being stuck without oxygen and daylight set my senses tingling and when the deaths started I wanted to rush to the end to discover ‘who Dunnit’ and so I could feel like I could take a breath. I kept changing my mind over who the murderer was but also couldn’t figure out how it had happened. At times I thought it was via food, water, air etc. The thought of being kept in a tight space with dead bodies almost pushed me over the edge. After reading this I then bought another Will Dean as I enjoyed it so much.

This was a gripping read, I thought the characters were intriguing and I'm going to keep an eye out for more from this author.

Utterly gripping, I couldn’t put this down and read it in a day. It was tense, face paced and original. The detail to the technical knowledge needed and the way the author enabled us to experience the life of a sat diver was exemplary. The unfolding backstory meant some twists and turns and we were kept guessing till the end. In fact, I feel I’m still guessing some what. This isn’t a story where everything is neatly tied up and presented to the reader with a bow on top. There is some ambiguity that will make for a great discussion post publication I’m sure.

A small group of divers have been paid incredibly well to live in a hyperbaric chamber for around a month. Their job is to dive to the bottom of the sea bed and repair oil pipes. The job is incredibly dangerous and everyone relies on everyone being diligent and professional.
But when a member of the team is found unresponsive in his bunk, the group becomes tense, fractious and suspicious of each other, especially as that member had never ventured from his bunk all day.
With a four day wait for decompression of the chamber to happen, mind games start to play on the remaining group. After all if someone doesn’t unlock the chamber they will all die.
I’m not sure I’ve read such a taut tense book like this before.
This really is the ultimate locked in mystery.
This is a testament of a writer that is on top of their game. I found myself transfixed and uncomfortable at the same time, but in a good way.
Will Dean really is a fine and clever writer and I found this book to be astonishingly good.

What a read! This is a proper locked room drama. Where you really have no idea who is killing people and how until the story starts to unravel right at the end. I really liked the ending of which I shall say no more….

I think the writing and detail of the chamber was great as it did really create the sense of being confined in a small space and at times how difficult and boring it must be especially with nothing to do but wait. The characters added to the sense of atmosphere too as they felt quite on edge and with their own demons.

How can a book set in one tiny chamber be fast paced and frightening? Just add one Will Dean.
A really unusual mystery which did nothing to ease my claustrophobia and which I zipped through in one day. A definite must read.

I would give this book 6 stars if that was an option.

Genuinely the most claustrophobic, intense, terrifying book I have read in my life!

There are so many twists, turns, and revelations that I never knew what was coming next. The closer I got to the end, the faster I read because I NEEDED to know.

Will Dean is a master of terror and tension!

I’m not going to lie, i have never been particularly interested in books set under the sea, or about diving etc, but when a new Will Dean book comes out, it doesn’t really matter what it’s about. I just have to read it.
Knowing very little about the diving world, I was extremely grateful for the glossary at the beginning of the book, and without out, I would have felt a bit lost. Saying that I still had to do a bit of googling, as I like to be able to visualise in my head what I’m reading, and a lot of the equipment and machinery I’d never seen before.
Without giving too much of the story away, this is essentially a locked room murder mystery, set in a hyperbaric chamber with six saturation divers, under the North Sea. It was certainly a page turner and very tense right the way through. It was also extremely repetitive, and a lot of the things that happened just felt like the exact same thing, over and over, but with a different character name each time. I did not like the main character at all. I found her arrogant and extremely entitled, with the opinion that her job is much much harder than everybody else’s. I hope no astronauts read this book! I also found the end very confusing and had to go back and read the last chapter again, as I felt as if I’d missed something? I will never think of raspberry jam in the same way again! I didn’t love this book, butI didn’t hate it either. It did keep my attention however, and I read it in one night.

Thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.