Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Chamber by Will Dean.

First off, there is a brief glossary at the beginning of the book that explains deep sea diving terms that I found really helpful.

This story was SOMETHING. I'll not forget it anytime soon. Brooks is the only female saturation diver, going on what should be a routine dive. But there's really nothing routine about it. There are six divers, cramped in a tiny hyperbolic chamber, breathing helium and oxygen instead of air. The conditions are very dangerous, and they have to keep their guard up at all times in order to survive.

But when one of the divers ends up dead, this dive becomes an entirely different dive. Was this a fluke, or is there a murderer on the vessel?

I didn't know that I would find saturation diving so fascinating, or so totally suffocating, but dang! I thought the author did an amazing job really allowing you to feel the claustrophobia and sheer helplessness of the plights of the divers. This did not move quickly, in fact, I imagine there will be criticism of how slowly it moves, but for me it added to the slow, horrifying countdown before the safe return. Great read.

The Chamber
Rating: 3 stars

Man do I have mixed feelings for this book, I loved it, but I also wasn't fully satisfied.

This was a fascinating setting for me. I had never heard of saturation divers before, but Will Dean had me invested and googling on my own to learn as much as I could about this field. Let me tell you, it is NOT for me. Do NOT sign me up to 1. live in a teeny tiny hyperbaric chamber for a month at sea with no privacy or personal space 2. work on the ocean floor. What lies down there is non of my business. Thank you very much. Anyways, this was such a great idea for a locked room mystery.

Dean also did a really great job with the tension throughout the novel. I felt like I was locked up with those divers feeling terrified, unsafe and claustrophobic. I actually would have loved even more action of them working on the floor of the sea and seeing these divers work through difficult/scary situations.

What I had issue with was the characters. They went by both a nickname as well as their given name, somewhat interchangeably. Even though there were only six divers, I had a hard time keeping straight who was who. I also felt like I didn't really get to know any of them. All we got were war stories and past diving situations. Which got kind old after a while and didn't do anything to help drive the plot forward.

Finally, the ending... uhhh I don't even fully think I got it. Up through the 90% mark we were still waiting to find out who or what was behind these acts of evil. It was actually really great to have maintained the suspense and fear for that long. Then the reveal happens and just ends. I needed more clarity and resolution behind the why. So on one hand, I loved the setting and the tension, but I think more meat was needed for the actual storyline to make it more interesting and and entertaining.

I requested this because one of my favorite sub-tropes is the locked room/who-dun-it type of settings. I also am claustrophobic as freaking heck and don't do open water, or go into the ocean. I thought, how perfect to creep me out or get my anxiety going. It did, lol. This is my second book by this author. I think this will be one people either really love or don't. Claustrophobic, tense at times, everyone's dropping one by one, and stuck at the bottom of the sea in a tiny room. It did a take a bit for me to get through, and I had to look up some of the things talked about with the saturation diving because I didn't know what it meant, etc, but that was on me, not the book. Overall, I did enjoy it. The ending wasn't my favorite, but it is what it is. Definitely not my last Will Dean book! Thank you to Will Dean, Netgalley, and publishers for the ARC.

I loved Will Dean’s book “The Last One” and was excited to read his newest story. Sadly, I didn’t like this one nearly as much. I found the story intriguing, but felt that it dragged on with much repetition. The jargon was a bit hard to understand and visualize. I had to Google things constantly, which I felt took away from the book. The ending didn’t have the punch I was hoping for either.

My second disappointment from Dean and I absolutely loved his book, FIRST BORN, but the ones after that have been letdowns. This started super slow for me and felt like it had too many characters to keep track even though they in a small space! The whole underwater/decompression theme was terrifying and I wished this was so much better than it was. I ended up skimming most of the book because it wasn't holding my attention and seemed disjointed. Thank you for the advance read.

I wanted to love this. But it just wasn’t for me. The story was soo slow and it just seemed so drawn out. I was super excited for it because of the plot but j felt it just needed more and it never gripped my attention..

Thank you netgalley for the ARC!

My favorite book trope…a group of people dropping like flies, one by one, WHO DID IT? In this case, six people are contained in a hyperbaric chamber while working on the sea floor. I couldn’t figure out how anyone was doing it, with all of them being within eyesight and supervision. I read through the chapters faster and faster the further I got, I really needed to know what was happening to these guys. I know nothing about hyperbaric chambers and under water diving, so a lot of technical stuff wasn’t interesting or just went over my head. No matter, a killer is still a killer in the end, and sometimes you’re left with even more unanswered questions!

Thanks to Will Dean, Atria Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

I received an advanced copy of this book from Atria Books via NetGalley.

Six seasoned saturation divers are confined in a hyperbaric chamber, facing four days of decompression before they can safely exit. Their professional calm is shattered when one of them is found dead in his bunk. With another diver soon discovered unresponsive, the group is thrust into a high-stakes game of survival, where trust is scarce and the clock is their enemy. The tension of whether they can outlast paranoia, exhaustion, and the mysterious threat lurking among them promises a gripping tale.

At least, that's what I expected. Unfortunately, the reality fell short. The narrative, which should have been tense and disturbing, struggles to maintain momentum. A significant issue lies in the technical jargon. Although there's a glossary provided, the frequent use of terms not in regular usage meant I had to consult additional sources to understand the living conditions described frequently. This disrupted the flow and immersion of the story.

The characters, each with real names and nicknames, added to the confusion. The frequent switching between these names made it difficult to keep track of who was who, further muddling the narrative. Even the recounting of old diving disasters, which should have added depth and context, felt tedious rather than engaging.

The pacing of the book is another letdown. What should have been a slow-burn build-up to a stunning climax as the chamber reaches the docks ends up feeling monotonous. When the big reveal finally came, it lacked the impact it should have had and left me feeling like I missed some crucial piece of information that I should have known.

This one took me a bit to get into but was a solid underwater read (assuming that that's your thing!).

What I liked/loved:
- I loved the horror elements of being trapped, especially underwater (those 'something's gone wrong in the deep' stories are few and far between, and while a lot of me is horrified by them, I also love them!). If you do have trouble with claustrophobia (or reading about it), I would definitely recommend reading with caution.
- I tend to feel a lot of respect for an author that can write the majority of a story in one 'room.' Most of this all plays out in one single underwater chamber, so the setting is not grand by any means, but it sets the stage well for intense moments, where every baby tiny detail comes to the forefront.
- I especially enjoyed feeling like I was diving into a very specific knowledge set, like I was being invited alongside an expert, learning how things work in the depths. I love a story that informs me on all sorts of things I didn't know about or had a vague understanding of.

What I didn't like/love:
- The start was really tough. Something about the writing made me feel like it was going to be a DNF and that they needed to get a better editor. It just wasn't hitting right. I will say that as I stuck with it, it did get better (the storyline capture you enough to keep you wanting to know the next thing). But even then, something about the writing made it a little more difficult to get going and to stick with it
- The storyline and how it all played out felt a bit all over the place and sort of chaotic at times, jumping through some scenes too quickly and leaving gaps, while slogging through other scenes/conversations that seemed more drawn out than necessary.

This book is about six experineced divers being locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. All is well until one of them is found dead in his bunk. Within four days of decompression until the hatch can be opened, the group has to watch their backs. They don't know what is happening or if they will be alive by the time the four days are up.
This totally sounded like a book I would really enjoy, so I was disappointed when I didn't end up liking it. If I'm being honest some parts of this book was okay. In the beginning I felt like it was going too slow, but I still kept reading. Some parts got better and I continued reading, but overall I wasn't a huge fan of this book. I do still love reading books early and being apart of netgalley, This book just wasn't for me and I couldn't even finish it. I was about halfway done before I stopped.

I struggled to get through this book. There are so many characters and they all have their real names and their nicknames. We get lots of info dumps about details of the ship their on, etc and I literally fell asleep twice reading those. How many times do I need to be told that they're going to be turned into raspberry jam? (6) How many times do we need to be told that they had to wipe down the walls of the chamber? (18) I could have forgiven the slow burn if it had been part of a slow build up toward an exciting finish... but it wasn't. By the time I got to the ending, I went "that's it?" The answer was very obvious throughout and I kept hoping I was wrong... alas.

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I've been a long-time fan of Will Dean, and I was so excited to read his recent book, "The Chamber." I love locked-room thrillers, and the first quarter of the book was really interesting as the divers were picked off one by one, losing trust in the ship's crew and each other. However, the book itself felt too focused on war stories rather than delving into the thriller aspect.

The moments when they discovered another crew member's body were the highlights for me, but much of the story felt padded with filler since not much was happening inside the chamber. The ending left me quite confused about the identity of the murderer. Unfortunately, this book didn’t meet my expectations.

*Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

Do I know what happened in this book? Not really. Did I love it? Quite certainly. It felt very Woman in the Window-y, especially with the forced confinement in the hyperbaric chamber. I felt claustrophobic just reading it! The divers are mysteriously picked off one by one and the reader is left wondering what's causing it. As the story progresses, so does Ellen's paranoia (and mine!). The descriptions were so visceral (raspberry jam, seriously??) that I felt like I knew what was going on despite my lack of knowledge in the deep sea diving domain.

But ultimately I'm left thinking... WHAT WAS REAL??

The concept of this one truly peeked my interest, I really wanted to love it, but I just could not understand everything and it was distracting for me to keep pushing through the story and truly grasp it all. I could not continue reading unfortunately.

This book had me struggling to breathe right from the beginning!! You’re taken to the bottom of the ocean with six sat divers to complete their mission. Will Dean describes everything so well that I was feeling claustrophobic from the jump. The Chamber can get a bit technical at times, but Dean provides you with a glossary and diagram so you can refer to those if you get confused. You experience things from each diver’s past as they share stories in the chamber and you learn about the families that they leave behind on the surface. You get attached to them and then they start dropping like flies!! This thriller was so intense and had some twists and turns that I did not see coming. Even once the book was finished, I still wasn’t exactly sure what happened!! I can’t wait to read more by Will Dean. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Chamber follows six divers but it’s not that simple. As the story goes on, will all six make it back alive?

I thought this book was okay. It held my attention enough to keep on reading but the ending was so abrupt and didn’t really make sense. There was all this buildup and suspense but then it fell flat. However, if you like submarines, and want to feel claustrophobic while reading this is the book for you.

Will Dean is an amazing author. This book had me feeling like I was one of the characters, stuck in the chamber with them. It was a little bit slow in some parts, but it helped build up the suspense of what was happening.

A few months ago, I devoured The Only One Left. It was all I could think about. I talked about it in my stories allll time time. I texted people who’ve read it and I’m sure they were sick of me. (Forever thankful for @ jess )
Needless to say, I was VERY excited for the author’s new book.


Claustrophobic thriller? I’m in.
There’s nothing I love more than a unique thriller. My one concern with this one was if it would be too “technical”, but the author did a great job at translating the deep dive world to us, normal readers.


Unlike his previous book, this one was not as exciting for me :( Intriguing? Yes, definitely. But it was soooo dragging. Lots and lots and LOTS of past stories of each character, and I started losing interest.


It’s still a great murder mystery, for fans of Agatha Christie, and for people who like the “who the heck is killing everyone, and why” kind of book.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books, Atria/Emily Bestler Books for the copy of The Chamber by Will Dean. I love locked room mysteries, so this book was right up my alley. I enjoyed learning about saturation diving and I know it wasn't the career for me. What an addictive read! I could feel the tension as the time ticked down. The imagery was vivid and just imagining how small the chamber was I could feel my walls closing in on me, even though I’m not claustrophobic. Near the end when they were all telling stories about past jobs the story lagged a bit but then picked right back up. Yes, a lot was left unexplained, but if you want to read a book that will keep you on edge with your heart in your throat, get your hands on this book! 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

Just brilliant!

I can't remember the last time I read a book that made me feel so claustrophobic, so I'm in the 'love to hate' category here. I found it difficult to read because it was so tense and creepy and the thought of it made me want to throw the book across the room! On the other hand, the skill you need to be able to write this is right up there so I can only give it the full five stars. I loved the concept, I loved the fact that I actually learnt something while reading it and I loved the whole atmosphere of the story. Another amazing hit from Will Dean.