This was an odd one. It was completely gripping and somehow well paced despite not much actually happening. With six divers locked in a very small space or mini submarine for over a week the 'action' consists mostly of endless reminiscing, protocols and cleaning. Even the deaths are pretty undramatic - more silent collapses. Yet the tense atmosphere, fascinating insight into a little known and high-risk environment, unique mix of characters and intrigue of the ultimate locked room murder are somehow addictive. Annoyingly the ending was written with a little doubt and misdirection so I'm not sure I completely got it and who was actually to blame. So all-in-all a mixed bag and completely different to the author's previous action-packed plot but enjoyable nonetheless.

The Chamber is a locked-room mystery with a difference…our characters are locked in a diving chamber hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
The story is simple. Six divers begin the job. One is found dead in their bunk early on. A number of other deaths take place while the divers are stuck in their chamber, eventually leaving just two. It’s a tense race against time to try and establish what has happened and who is responsible.
From the outset I confess that much of the terminology used left me rather cold. However, what Dean conveyed skilfully was the psychological impact on the divers of their jobs and the risks they face every time they take on a job. I got bored of reading about the risk of them turning to raspberry jam if protocol wasn’t followed, but I thoroughly enjoyed the focus on how they reacted to changing circumstances.
I felt the pacing lost impact slightly. Once they had reached the surface events were somewhat rushed, although I can’t help but feel there is a delightful ambiguity to the way things are left.
It didn’t do anything to allay my fear of being stuck under water in a confined space, but it certainly gripped me and entertained me. Huge thanks to the author and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this.

Will Dean does it again. What an incredible writer. The Chamber is one of those books that hooks you in. The descriptions so clear that you truly get a picture of life for saturation divers. The sheer claustrophobia, being dependable on others for everything. Then what happens when things start to go wrong.

The author is definitely cementing his place amongst those I watch out for time and time again.

Wow!

You know how thrilers are often described as “nail-biting” or “nerve-shredding” as a massively exaggerated explainer of their high-stakes? The Chamber, the sixth novel by high-concept thriller powerhouse Will Dean, has delivered a novel that is, without question, one of the tensest things I have ever read? My nails? Bitten. My nerves? Shredded.

The Chamber is written from the first-person perspective of Ellen Brooke, an experienced saturation diver. Along with 6 others, she’s on a mission to the bottom of the North Sea. Brooke’s work is highly specialised and dangerous; together with her fellow divers, she bunks down in a tiny metal capsule 100m below the surface for weeks at a time, cut off from the world around them and completely reliant on their onshore caretakers. If you are in any way claustrophobic, this work will put the fear of god in you, as it did me – and the stakes get higher ater about 20% into the book, when one of the divers aboard dies in his bunk. But the divers need to decompress their sub slowly – it’ll take 4 days, in fact. All the while not knowing who the killer – if there is one – is. And so, a fascinating novel about a terrifying, niche line of work becomes a fascinating, terrifying locked-room thriller.

Will Dean is so good at suspense and atmosphere as well as being wildly intelligent in both concept and execution, and this one is no different. The Chamber draws the reader into an entirely new world – Dean has done some amount of research; there’s even a glossary of terms at the beginning. We are given enough information to educate us on a topic most of us probably know very little about, but we aren't overly bogged down in details.

The Chamber is a masterclass in tension; by taking a deeply (heh) claustrophobic scenario and making it – somehow – worse! My god, the situation these divers find themselves in is hellish. I physically recoiled from this book a few times; Dean doesn’t spare the reader the horrors of this line of work, both actual and hypothetical. “Bacterial ear rot” is a string of words I never want to read again, and I will never see raspberry jam the same way.

The novel is pacy but never too fast; perhaps I would have liked a slightly longer epilogue as I was left with many, many questions at the end of this one. Maybe it was because I read this one sick in bed but I did finding the ending ambiguous to the point of confusion.
There’s so much at play here – Ellen’s position as one of the only women in her line of work, the fact that the whole thing is jammed with MacBeth references – it’s a lot to take in. But Dean manages to keep all the plates spinning impressively. A queasy, terrifying, jaw-dropping thriller that I won’t forget in a hurry.

I’ve read everything that Will Dean has written - the fabulous Tuva Moodyson series and his several stand-alone novels.
Every single time he has a new book published, I’m always of the opinion that this one is his best yet. But this time, no really, definitely this time, I can hold up my hand and state that The Chamber is definitely his best so far!!
It’s hard to go too far into the plot without giving away any spoilers, so my review will just be me raving about how much I enjoyed this book.
Considering this was written by a man who lives in a forest in Sweden, Will Dean must have done some seriously hefty research into the subject matter - the life of Saturation Divers working on the North Sea bed.
Even if there was no plot, I would still have given this book five stars for the fascinating insight about how these crews live and work in tiny chambers and diving bells for weeks at a time before they have to slowly decompress before they can re-surface.
The level of descriptive detail about how intensely claustrophobic and dangerous the job is and how much reliance there has to be with trust in their co-divers was just brilliant.
I cannot recommend The Chamber highly enough.
But I’m left with one question: What the hell can Will Dean write next that can beat this??
I can’t wait to find out!

Tension tension tension.

There were times when I was reading this book that I felt I couldn't breathe. The writing was so vivid I could imagine myself in the chamber with them all.

The tension was palpable the whole way through, it never let up. As the deaths started happening I grew more and more desperate for them to get out of the chamber and to discover what was happening.

I couldn't help but draw some small comparison to those who lost their lives last year while trying to see the titanic wreckage.

Excellent writing, great, story. The ending left me hungry for more.

Another brilliant, unique book from Will Dean. When I read the couple of pages of glossary explaining diving terms at the beginning of the book my heart sank. I thought I really don't need a book so complicated I need to learn a new language to understand it. However, that definitely was not the case. Dean soon has you confined in the tiny chamber with six divers far far down under the North sea. Then the deaths begin! The tension he creates wondering who is going to be next?....is anyone going to survive?.......how is it being done when they're never alone or unwatched? A wonderful read. The ultimate locked room thriller.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

In The Chamber we are taken on a tense and claustrophobic journey into a hyperbaric diving chamber. Ellen and her crew-mates descend to the ocean floor for a month-long assignment, when a tragic incident cuts their mission short. Trapped in the chamber during decompression, the divers face a series of unexplained deaths, leaving them questioning who they can trust and what lurks in the depths with them.
Another gripping thriller from this renowned author, one that keeps you guessing until the end. If you enjoy heart-pounding thrillers then this book is for you! .

When readers ask for a locked room mystery, the chamber by Will Dean is literary it.
When six experiences saturation divers descends to the depth of the North Sea in a hyperbaric chamber. To live and work on the ocean floor. But when of the divers, one of the youngest of the crew suddenly dies. Their work is cut short, and they are told to return to the surface. In that time of decompression, more divers die, and everyone wonders what the hell is going on and the trust between the remaining members die with them.
I have mixed feelings of the authors work and some of his books for me personally are a hit of a miss. The Chamber is a hit for me. This is a fab locked room mystery, with its fresh and unique storyline. Whilst reading this I could feel the tension between the air between the divers and also made me feel a bit claustrophobic been in close contact with others. This is a great page turner. 4 stars from me.

Will Dean is one of my favourite authors – his reads are always fast-paced thrillers, and each one is unique in its premise. The Chamber, set in a hyperbaric diving chamber is no exception and I was so excited to start reading.

It’s clear that a lot of research has gone into this book which is certainly to be commended. The story is told through the eyes of Ellen, a veteran diver who is attempting to record various aspects of the dives to inspire more women to get into the field. It’s such a fascinating glimpse into an industry I know nothing about (although, it hasn’t inspired me to want to take the plunge!). When one of their number is found dead, the stakes get higher and higher as the divers have to wait out the slow climb to the surface together in close proximity. It really is a high-pressure read, leaving you breathless at every turn and I found myself racing through the book, unable to put it down. It’s a fantastic setting for a thriller and one that works well for the ‘locked room’ style narrative.

Unfortunately, I had a few niggles with this book that I have not experienced with Will Dean’s work before, but I think it still warrants a 5-star review overall. It can be a little repetitive in places, mainly down to world-building a setting and an industry that not many people know much about and trying to ensure that information is absorbed by the reader. Also, although I loved the rest of the book, the ending felt very rushed and although I enjoyed the conclusion, I didn’t really understand the motivations behind it.

Overall, The Chamber is another hit from Will Dean – a fast-paced, high-pressure thriller in a fantastically unique setting. Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder & Stoughton for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of THE CHAMBER by Will Dean - after huge anticipation and build up, the first 90% of the book was exceptional - I had a brilliant, breathless time reading this book! As a huge fan of Will Dean, I was thrilled to see him following a 'North Sea TikTok Trend' and he executed the journey perfectly.

I was slightly disappointed by the ending, but solely because it felt a little anticlimactic because of the brilliance of the bulk of the book, and the extra sting in the tail in the ending of THE LAST PASSENGER - which we're all still reeling from!

Firstly a big thank you to the publishers For my early access in exchange for a honest review.
I’m a big fan of will deans books , he puts the capital T in tension by creating escapism within words.

This was a claustrophobic and unsettling read and you really feel like you’re in the setting .

You always know you’re in for a journey with one of wills books and this certainly went places I’m certainly not going to visit in my daily life !

Highly recommend if you enjoy your thrillers with a difference .

Every time I read a book by Will Dean, I promise myself I will never read another one again but lo behold I pick the latest one! I can't help myself . The books draw you in but then the ending always makes you want to scream and call up Mr. Dean and ask what happened? I guess if a book makes you do that then it is a great book!

Having lost my reading mojo, I was picking up books and putting them down again and just couldn't settle to read anything. Until I got approved to read this.

I have been a Will Dean fan since he started writing and this book was just superb. The amount of research for a start off that must have gone in to writing this book is to be admired.

As for the book itself, just fantastic. It was tense, it was claustrophobic and everything else you could ask for.

Highly recommended.

This book ate my whole Saturday. I literally couldn't put it down. Yes, there is a lot of info dump that people will either enjoy or be allergic to but I found it all really interesting and once the story gets moving it's incredibly tense. If I was reading it in print rather than on kindle I'd have been struggling not to flip to the end to relieve the tension of not knowing what was going to happen. The characters are a great mix, all different but believable and with their own stories. The MC, Ellen, is brilliantly drawn. And the plot is riveting, particularly the claustrophobia of the last quarter. Even the ending - you think you know what happened, but do you? Excellent.

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of The Chamber to consider for review.

'Never get ahead of your hat'.

The first thing to say is that Will Dean's new thriller The Chamber deserves a title for 'most high pressure novel of the year'. Literally, because the events of the story take place in a diving capsule that's been pressurised to deep sea conditions. Our protagonists are therefore breathing 'helox', a mixture of helium and oxygen, and, as main character Ellen points out, they all speak with squeaky voices which have to be decoded electronically for those outside.

An amusing thought, or it would be, if the events that befall Ellen and her five companions weren't so grim.

The Chamber does a fine job, I think, of portraying the strenuous conditions under which the divers survive. They're meant to be in the pressurised chamber for a month, attending to repairs on North Sea oil equipment on daily shifts without the need for further compression and decompression. Saturation diving like this - 'Sat' - isn't for the fainthearted, it's only for the best of the best. Everyone in the chamber has proved their ability through years of hard work and rigorous (and expensive) training. Ellen is one of the few women working at the top - or perhaps I should say at the bottom - of this industry and the role has cost her, as we find out. As it's cost her companions. They are all risking health effects from the saturation conditions and from the accidents caused by the stress on the equipment (there are constant references to rust). The month away from home wrecks family and home life for men and women, though Ellen is subject to judgments which aren't made of her male colleagues. She is seen as sacrificing her family life, they aren't.

There are also the peculiar economic conditions of the job - everyone is a self-employed contractor - which breed grudges and quarrels in what is a small world of jobs and workers. The nature of the job, providing, as it does, basic accommodation and meals - 'three hots and a cot' - encourages institutionalisation (there are comparisons both with the Armed Forces and with prisons) encouraging the divers back out, away from the perplexities and decisions of ordinary life.

So when things begin to go wrong, with Ellen and her mates imprisoned until a 5-day descompression can be undertaken, the fingers of blame point in all direction.

This is an incredibly tense book. Literally a locked-room mystery, the divers are thrown on their own resources both to investigate what's happening and to protect themselves from further harm. The conditions they're in tend to paranoia even when things are going well, with phantasms and imagination a risk of long, lonely hours and isolation. But in a macho world - even for women! - certain subjects are avoided, or at least, kept to be discussed on shore. With its lapses in the narration, its room for interpretation about what is going on outside the chamber and its sense there are things we're not being told, the story develops an almost eerie mood which Dean contributes to by dropping references to the Scottish Play through the narrative, fitting given the location of the North East coast of Scotland (one of the main characters, it soon emerges, lives in Cawdor). See how many you can get - there is a Malcolm here, I also spotted Dunsinane, a MacDuff, numerous quotes and of course, in the chamber infection control is key so there's plenty of hand washing...

That play, I'd remind you, deals not only with a power struggle but with temptation, with an outside direction to do evil. It's a direction that one may or may not resists. There may be a connection in The Chamber: what is going on outside, and what evils, what temptations, have our characters brought in form there?

The story gets even more tense as we near the, and this one kept me up past bedtime as I had to finish it. A superb piece of writing that I'd recommend strongly.

I loved Will Dean's books such as Last thing to burn, firstborn and the Last Passenger and so I was hoping this new one, The Chamber , wouldn't disappoint - and it didn't.
Set in the world of deep sea diving, I found myself wondering if Will had actual experienced this career himself as all the terminology and background information made me feel like I was hearing from a professional deep sea diver and the anecdotes from various members of the team about their experiences all over the world, including real life evens such as Piper Alpha made it all the more real.
Ellen is the narrator and you can tell she is a troubled character from the start, but everyone in the team has got different reasons for doing this job when they are sent to the sea bed for weeks at a time to work on the oil pipelines, breathing a mix of helium and oxygen so their bloodstream is full of it. And this is the key here - because in order to return to the surface they must undergo slow decompression - so they don't get the bends which could be fatal. They must wait in th chamber until the mixture of gases in the air is slowly returned to normal and their bloodstream is filled with oxygen - a process that takes days.
Ellen returns from the first shift on the seabed to find one of the 6 members of the team dying. The team are all trauma medic trained and they have to attempt life saving CPR within a metal tin no bigger than a family size bathroom deep in the North Sea, watched and supervised by a medic on board the ship that holds them steady. He dies despite their efforts and they need to return to the surface. But this is where the locked room countdown begins. Can they make it to the surface undergoing decompression before any of the others are killed. The answer is no - but who will die, who is doing this and are they being sabotaged by people from the outside - those who give them their food and water, or worse -----from within.
In the last few chapters Will Dean really ramps up the tension, the constant countdown, the paranoia, the fear and most of all wondering who is doing this and why!

Will Dean is one of the few authors that make me so tense I end up gritting my teeth the whole time I’m reading. This is very different to The Last Thing to Burn but evoked the same feelings of dread. I absolutely loved it!

It was fascinating learning about saturation diving which I’d never heard of and would never, ever want to do. It was claustrophobic and gripping and completely captivating.

Brilliantly done!

Ellen Brooke is a satuation diver and is posted on a job with 5 other guys, men she's worked with before and trusts, after all she's stuck in a hyperbaric chamber for a whole month with them, only leaving to work on the sea bed in the North sea. On the first morning she spends 8 hours on her dive but on her return to the chamber her fellow colleagues are trying to resuscitate a newbie, Tea-bag. Sadly, with no success. They are told they will be brought back to the surface but have to face 4 days further whilst chamber is decompressed. Tensions are running high and the claustrophobic atmosphere does not help the situation.
Having not enjoyed Will Dean's last book so much I was debating about reading this novel. I am so glad I did, I could not put the book down, I was completely engrossed in the story. Sure to be another successful book and I think it would make a great movie

And now for something completely different – a murder mystery in a diving bell. The author must have made an enormous amount of research and it pays off. There are twists and turns to keep you guessing as well as red herrings (rather appropriate being underwater). Overall, an easy read once you've mastered the divers' terminology and slang.