The setting for this book is so unique and honestly something I didn’t even know existed. The premise of the book follows six saturation divers locked in a hyperbaric chamber. The chamber is cramped and barely enough space to move around with 3 sets of bunks. They are on day one of their dive when things start to go bad and they find one of their own dead in his bunk. The dive is quickly aborted but they must go through 4 days of decompression before getting back on land and finding out what happened to their friend and coworker.

The unique setting was so intriguing but almost required so much explaining and technical jargon that it took up a majority of the book. Once I had my head wrapped around the setting, I could really feel the claustrophobia setting in. The thick helium, the stress, and the eventually not being able to trust their food and drink would be enough to make anyone lose it. It was interesting to get to hear the dive stories from the different characters, but it did start to feel repetitive towards the end. Overall, a cool premise but still unsure how I feel about the ending. The author definitely has kept me guessing till that last page.

Thank you Net Galley for an ARC.
This book was drawn out and slow. I wanted this to be a DNF, but I stuck to it hoping it would get better. It didn’t.
6 divers in a small compartment. One by one, they start to die. My first problem was, I couldn’t visualize exactly all that was going on. Yes, there is a “picture” of the chamber where they stay, the wet pot, diving bell and so on, but for some reason, my brain couldn’t understand all the aspects of the story. For example, how did the saturation diver come out of the water and into the diving bell with the diver’s feet still in the water? Sounds confusing to me, but in my mind, I couldn’t understand a diver going from outside to inside without filling the whole diving bell with water. I think this book would be better with more descriptive pictures and/or descriptive words throughout the book. My brain needs more explanation on how things work.
And that ending! It was like a kick in the face. I was holding out for the ending - A way for the author to make a redemption. Rather, the ending just solidified my 1 star rating. It fell flat and needed way more explaining! Way more!
All in all, this book had great potential, but it fell super flat for me.

OMG!! Will Dean never disappoints! The twists and turns had me gripping the edge of my seat. I enjoyed being given this ARC. The character development was good. If you like thrillers, you will love this book!

I loved this book and Will Dean is a master of the genre . He writes believable characters and plot with such skill that her draws you in . I didn’t know anything about saturation divers so I learned a great deal about that . Overall a wonderful book
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review book


Overall this was a good cozy mystery but I found the main storyline far fetched and not believable . It seemed like I was reading a comedy version of the TV series using same premise
I found it slow and it didn’t hold my interest most likely because I don’t believe in ghosts
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review book

Will Dean's novels were some of my first forays into the suspense/thriller genre and I can honestly say I've enjoyed/loved each new release just as much as his last, if not more. Which is why I'm certain that I will absolutely have a twisty good time with this one! Thank you to NG and the publisher for this opportunity!!

Upon learning about this book , my attention was immediately grabbed. Learning about saturation divers was new for me! I was truly intrigued and wanted to learn more on this topic. The setting of this book is unlike any other I have ever read. There is a good bit of technical details throughout. In the beginning this was hard to follow but did become easier. At other times, I found myself skimming to get past the diving details or chamber details to learn more about the actual story line. The characters names and nicknames was a bit tricky to follow. I kept asking myself who was who. However , for readers who enjoy a captive situation in their reads ; this book delivers. A quick , fast paced read that reaffirms why Will Dean is a repeat author to red for so many!

This gripping novel throws six divers into a high-stakes scenario as they are locked in a pressurized chamber at the bottom of the North Sea for a month. The tense and claustrophobic setting sets the stage for a thrilling locked room mystery, where trust is scarce and danger lurks in the depths. Written with a fast-paced and immersive style, the story captivates with its escalating tension and atmospheric underwater world. As the divers grapple with physical and psychological challenges, suspicions mount and the countdown to a heart-pounding conclusion begins. The author's meticulous research shines through, lending authenticity to the nail-biting narrative. Overall, this locked room mystery is a compelling and addictive page-turner, with a satisfying and enigmatic ending that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the author's next venture. Highly recommended for fans of the genre. Many thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the opportunity to read and review this thrilling ARC.

Whew, this was a wild ride! It took a minute to get past all of the technical jargon related to diving, but I couldn't put this one down. Still not my favorite from this author, but recommend for a suspenseful, breath-holding thriller!

Received an arc of this book and was super excited! The chamber follows 6 divers deep down in the ocean working for a month. They can’t leave, and have to depend on others for survival, then they start dying one by one. This book started off with a bang and I was really enjoying it. At about the 70% point it was dragging on, and I did not care for the ending. Maybe I just didn’t understand it? This book left me with more questions than answers.

Content warning for vilification of mental illness: The POV character has intrusive thoughts and throughout the book it’s framed as something we should be afraid and suspicious of, how at any moment she could *gasp* act on those thoughts and kill all her coworkers. It’s pretty offensive!

I went in hoping for ‘life threatening problems, deep under the sea’, and instead it was people in a decompression chamber *on a boat* for 4 days, telling war/trauma stories to keep their mind off the whole ‘their coworker’s corpse is just Also Here for decompression’ thing. We only get one dive before the death that kicks everything off happens! Extremely little spooky ocean content, and extremely high amounts of “Imagine being in a small room...”

Overall, the slow pacing and repetitiveness kept me from really being immersed in the claustrophobia and paranoia, and the reveal/ending was very underwhelming.

(Also I don’t know if I missed something, but this is set in the early 2000’s, but it’s revealed so slowly and far in the book that it felt like it was supposed to be a twist. ????)

Yet another amazing book by Will Dean that I would recommend. Ellen is a saturation diver who goes to the depths of the oceans to help out. She is along with 5 other men in this tiny locked up chamber that has to be kept closed the entire time. If you're claustrophobic, this would not be ideal for you but highly suspicious acts are going on. What happens? Will Ellen be okay? Read to find out!

Thanks to Net Galley for an arc of this book. Six saturation divers go to the floor of the North Sea to make repairs on an oil drill. They are performing one of the most dangerous and deadly jobs in the world. They are in a very small chamber with barely room to move around. Ellen is the only female diver on board and has lots of experience. She is grateful to suit up and take a walk out on the bottom of the ocean just to escape that tight capsule they are living in for the next four months. After six hours she finally is taken back up to the vessel to find one of her companion divers dying on the floor. A claustrophobic read that will keep you guessing until the end. The Chamber by Will Dean comes out in August 2024. 3.75 stars

Six deep sea divers who do oil-related pipeline repairs on the seabed have settled in for their weeks-long assignment when one of the divers is found dead in his bunk. The divers, locked in the apparatus, cannot leave until the completion of a four day decompression period. When another diver also mysteriously dies, the remaining crew members are faced with the possibility that one of them is a killer. The Chamber is a claustrophobic, tension filled journey as the divers contend with their innermost fears, and the cramped and suddenly toxic chamber only heightens the drama. This is a slow-burn psychological thriller that is literally a locked-room scenario in the truest sense of the word. The author does a great job of placing the reader in the chamber with the divers by methodically describing the procedures the divers must follow, from the mundane to the heroic and everything in between, culminating in an unexpected finish. Well done! I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you for the opportunity to preview The Chamber. I really liked this book. Very claustrophobic, suspenseful and great dialogue.
Deep sea diving is a subject I am unfamiliar with and Chambers educates the reader on this very difficult job for those who make a living doing it.
Six divers live is a small chamber to the bottom of the sea to extract oil from the ocean floor. All experienced- 5 means and one woman. Dean lets the female lead.Brooke narrate this tense and deadly story. Six divers go in the Chamber. How. Many will come out. Very good. 4 stars

Claustrophobic, distressing and psychologically unsettling, The Chamber is another gripping and fiercely intense thriller from the twisted mind of Will Dean. It will test your nerves, send your heart racing and increase your anxiety in a way only the most vivid and suspenseful books can do.

Six veteran saturation divers are confined in a hyperbaric chamber, where they manage the dangerous environment by working shifts and breathing helium, fully aware that rapid decompression could be fatal. Then their small fully contained world is rocked when one diver is discovered dead in his bunk. With the job now cancelled, they face four days of decompression before they can safely exit. When another diver dies, the pressure mounts, paranoia sets in, and tensions rise. With no answers as to what is happening to them and no way out, survival becomes their focal point while trying to keep suspicion and exhaustion at bay. And only by making it out alive will they be able to determine what really happened in the chamber.

The Chamber is a literal locked room mystery. Six individuals locked in a cramped chamber they cannot exit. Someone dies. Who did it and how? Is it someone on the inside and the others just missed it? Is it a member of the crew on the outside that is manipulating the food and supplies passed through to them? Is there something wrong with the environment that no one can pinpoint? Or is it a tragic accident?

Will Dean does a wonderful job of keeping readers guessing, throwing suspicion on every character throughout the story while ratcheting up the pressure as the clock slowly and painfully ticks downward to the time the hatch will be opened. You’ll question their sanity, their motives, their history and how that affects their actions. You’ll change your mind multiple times on who or what is responsible. And all the while you’ll be holding your breath, sweating the outcome and feeling the pressure the characters are under. Resulting in an enjoyably stressful reading experience.

I recently read The Last One by Will Dean and so I was really excited at receiving my first ARC for The Chamber. The premise sounded interesting and I love a good locked room mystery.

I hate to be critical or negative but I have to say that this book was not for me. I could tell that the author is either a very experienced diver or did A LOT of research into. The parts of the book that discussed the diving were very technical and I found myself lost at trying to figure out the logistics and terminology. There was a glossary at the beginning which terms and definitions as well as a picture of the chamber but I was still confused and didn’t want to have to constantly flip to the beginning to see what was going on.

The story itself was an interesting concept. Six divers are in this closed chamber and one by one they start dying and no one knows why. It started out pretty slow for me and I had a difficult time pushing through. I almost DNF’d the book a few times but I pushed through. It didn’t pick up for me until almost halfway through the book and then it slowed down again. There were only six divers but they had real names and nicknames and other than the main character I had a hard time keeping track of who was who.

The ending of the book was also frustrating. I reread it twice because I was confused and I still don’t know who the murderer is. I guess it could be one of those books that leaves it open to interpretation but I couldn’t tell if this was a deliberate act by the author or unintentionally vague. In either case it was frustrating.

All in all I personally did not like this book but someone who is into diving or very slow burns may enjoy it. I did really like Will Dean’s previous book so I would still read other works from him but this one is a no for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

🤿THE CHAMBER
⭐️⭐️⭐️✨✨/3.75
Genre: suspense

🤿 I learned ALOT while reading this book and now I am completely obsessed with learning more about #SaturationDiving. This is why I have always loved reading! Going places I’ve never been before, learning things about the world I never knew existed!!!

🤿Things I googled while reading this🤣:
1. Saturation Diving
2. Saturation Diving Documentary
3. How much do sat divers make
4. Burial at Sea


💬if being trapped in a small chamber at the level of the sea bed in the middle of The North Sea while bodies start piling up peeks your interest at all ✨you should grab this one! I do recommend a physical copy so you can go back and forth from the meat of your reading to the front where there is a glossary of terms and a pictorial diagram of the chamber. Also: I stopped at 10% and watched The Last Breath on @netflix to get my bearings on the subject matter. It helped a lot and I was invested after that. And I HIGHLY recommend that documentary even if you don’t read the book. It was really good! Cons to this read was the character development. With having to sort out and understand a new subject, the six or seven characters had real names AND nicknames making it hard to keep them separate in my head. I still think this could be a really great summer read!!

This story is about six divers in a hyperbaric chamber. The must decompress in order to survive getting back to the surface. However, like any great thriller, they are trapped and one of the divers is found dead. With no other place to go, they have to stay alive long enough to decompress from their dive and reach the surface. Intense and a bit claustrophobic, this novel was an absolute banger once again from Will Dean!!! I absolutely loved trying to figure out who was the killer and it was nerve wracking to have them figure it out before they were able to get free.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for this e-arc for review! After LOVING Will Dean's last book I was so pumped to receive The Chamber. The Chamber is a slow burn thriller following a group of saturation divers (you'll learn plenty what this means) as they are picked off one by one while completely cut off from the outside world. This book gets pretty technical, but Dean does a great job of making it accessible.

Ellen Brooke is an experienced saturation diver who arrives to the North Sea ready to complete her assignment of maintaining oil equipment on the sea floor. Five other divers enter the hyperbaric chamber with Ellen but how many will make it out alive? As the divers go “under pressure” and begin their work, one of the saturation divers is found dead in his bunk. Because rapid decompression would be fatal to those left alive (raspberry jam), the divers must wait four days for the chamber to safely decompress. Under these tense circumstances, four days seems like a lifetime. When another diver is discovered to be dead, tensions flare and the divers must decide who among them can be trusted.

This book was insanity and introduced me to a world that I had never even heard of. I am obsessed! On top of that, I learned so much about this very dangerous profession. It definitely takes guts! The story is told from the perspective of Ellen. I really liked Ellen and her air of mystery. She is a tough one to get a read on but as the narrative progresses, we slowly start to peel back the layers of her past. I just adore Will Dean and his writing. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next :)

Thank you to Atria Books, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.