This book left me breathless. Will Dean’s writing had me feeling claustrophobic. This book had me on edge from start to finish. Great book!

Thank you Netgalley and Atria books for the digital arc.

**3.5-stars**

The Chamber follows six deep sea divers as they head out on a new assignment in the North Sea, where they'll be working for the next month. The world of saturation diving is small, and unsurprisingly, the team has worked together before. Thus, they've built up a certain level of trust and camaraderie amongst them. The dynamics feel like a family. We're told the story via the perspective of Ellen, a rare woman worker in a mostly male industry.

Everything seems to be going as planned, until one of the team is found dead in his bunk. The remaining crew members are shook. How did he die? What are they supposed to do with his body?

With four days of decompression required before they can open the hatch back to the regular world, they need to watch each other's back. What if he didn't die of natural causes? What if one of them did it? They could be trapped in the smallest, most panic-inducing living quarters, with an actual killer? This isn't good.

A short-time later, when another diver is discovered unresponsive in much the same way, everyone puts their guard up. It's becoming increasingly possible that these events aren't a natural occurrence. As suspicions run rampant, and tensions rise, everyone wonders, 'who is going to make it out of this dive alive?'

While this sounds like an electrifying set-up, and it did keep me guessing, there was something about it that I didn't quite vibe with. I've been thinking about it, and I think maybe it had to do with the delivery of Ellen's perspective. I found it a bit choppy and hard to connect with.

I've had this book since it's release, but finally decided to make time for it after recently watching the Netflix documentary, Titan: The OceanGate Disaster. I've always been interested in these types of deep sea diving careers, and this was definitely a fun read after watching that unsettling doc. I feel like Dean captured the details of the saturation divers' challenges and lifestyle, as well as the setting of the hyperbaric chamber, really well. In fact, those details on the profession itself, and the environment the divers were in, was my favorite aspects of this book.

It's also a very quick read. I listened to the entire audiobook on a Saturday while doing my housework. I was entertained, but I didn't find it truly gripping. I wasn't at the edge of my seat, but honestly, that's okay. Not every book is going to blow your hair back. This is still a fun Locked Room Mystery, with a unique concept. I just wish I could have connected a little more with the writing style, and the way Ellen's perspective was delivered.

Nevertheless, I would still recommend this if you enjoy Locked Room Mysteries, and very much so if you are interested in deep sea diving, and the aspects of a career in that field. I feel that was a success here.

Thank you to the publisher, Atria, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I really enjoy Will Dean's creativity and willingness to take some risks with his stories. I'm looking forward to more!

I enjoyed this book overall - it wasn't as fast-paced as I had hoped, but I didn't mind the locked-room psychological unraveling of the divers. I was very invested all the way through, but the end just took me out of it. I'm still not quite sure how it actually ended, or what happened. There was "resolution," maybe? But was there? I'm OK with an ambiguous ending if I feel like it serves the story. This just seemed incomplete or rushed. If the story had a more complete ending, I would have highly recommended it.

Like much of the rest of the world, I became obsessed during the summer of 2023 with the Titan submersible and its subsequent implosion. While I would never dive down into the depths of the ocean myself, I became incredibly intrigued by the people who are brave enough to do it. Will Dean’s The Chamber about saturation divers being murdered off one by one while on a job seemed like the perfect book to explore another field related to the deep sea.

The Chamber chronicles the lives of six saturation divers who are on a job in the North Sea. Confined to a chamber inside a ship, they have to live this way for a period of time to adjust to the pressure fluctuations that come with deep sea diving. The chamber is tiny, claustrophobic, and filled with helium, and the divers must live this way for several days during a job to avoid becoming incredibly sick.

However, when one of the divers ends up dead, their tight living quarters suddenly become incredibly too close for comfort. Pretty soon, divers are dropping dead left and right, but how and why? Is it the food being passed to them from onboard the ship? Is it the air they are breathing? Or is it one of their fellow divers who has turned murderous?

The Chamber is a thriller with a compelling premise and ominous, atmospheric setting. The novel is very informative, detailing what it is like to live and work in a hyperbaric chamber while fearing for your life. However, to readers who are not well-versed with the technical aspects of saturation diving, this book can become quite overwhelming. I personally had to read and watch supplemental material about saturation diving to get a grasp on what the divers’ living quarters and job responsibilities were truly like because I couldn’t wrap my head around them from the book alone.

Furthermore, the divers are confined to this small space with not much to do aside talk to each other, but their conversations are not the most entertaining. I certainly wouldn’t want to be stuck with this crew and have to listen to them recount past jobs and people they have known - it would be enough to drive anyone mad. As a reader, it made for some very boring passages of the book, which frankly, you could skip over without losing context.

In all, The Chamber is a mixed bag. It is a suspenseful story with great premise, but not the most enticingly executed.

So this one was somehow both suspenseful and intense….and boring. While it was interesting reading about deep sat diving, there was too much of that and not enough plot. There was just story after story so the MANY ways you can die while diving. Basically it didn’t get good til the last 20% of the book, and I didn’t love the ending…the motivation was weak & the resolution was ambiguous.

This was a really interesting concept, but it was hard for me to get into. I think the slow burn was a bit too slow for me this time around.

This one wasn’t really for me. The premise had serious potential—a claustrophobic, high-stakes deep-sea thriller—but the execution didn’t quite land.

There were some genuinely gripping moments (especially when things went wrong or people died), but they were too few and far between. Much of the book felt bogged down by long stretches of introspection, diving jargon, and detailed war stories. The pacing dragged, and I found myself checking out more than once.

I did appreciate the characters, and while the dive-speak didn’t bother me too much, I mostly skimmed past the detailed glossary. I give full credit to the author for his research—he clearly knows his stuff—but at times it felt like I was reading a technical manual more than a thriller.

The claustrophobic atmosphere was well done, but being stuck in the narrator’s head for so long wore me down. This was a cool concept, but for me, the story didn’t match the promise of the premise.

Thanks to Atria Books and Netgalley.

The Chamber by Will Dean was a chaotic and intriguing read that ultimately left me wanting a bit more. While I found the deep dive into the world of saturation diving fascinating and informative, the thriller aspect didn’t quite hit the mark for me. At times, it felt more like reading an educational piece with a touch of murder rather than a full-on suspense novel. Though the premise held my interest, certain sections dragged and lacked the tension I was hoping for. Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Will Dean is an excellent author when it comes to thrillers. His stories are always written with beautiful description and at a great speed to keep the reader enthralled with the mystery of the prose. This particular Will Dean novel had me coming back for more every time I set it down. I felt as if I was living under the sea just like the main character Ellen, who was working in an under ocean aquanaut confined to a small chamber for a month while working beneath the waters. The only thing about this story that wasn’t pleasant was the amount of aquanaut vocabulary and terminology that made it difficult to understand in some parts. Dean gives you a glossary of terms at the beginning of the story but flipping back and forth to understand what the author is discussing is time consuming and takes some of the leisure out of the read. Over all I think it’s worth the read though.

This was quite the claustrophobic, uncomfortable read, but in a way that made me excited. Horror that resides in the deep is something that I find truly mesmerizing and horrific all at once. I was sucked in at the beginning, and found the middle to be entertaining and more fast-paced, but the ending felt a bit rushed. I was left needing more - wanting to stay within the story longer to wrap my head around a couple of things. On a fun plus side, this book had me going down rabbit holes to learn about saturation diving - I found it so interesting and terrifying.

3 Stars

The first part of this book started to scratch the itch left behind from the Martian (my top read of 2024) as it had a lot of scientific jargon but mixed with a thriller (my favorite genre). I was on my way to rating this higher but that ending? It felt so rushed and left me wondering exactly why and how. I was left grasping for more and not in a good way. Overall a decent read but not my favorite by this author.

This was my first book by Will Dean and I was pretty excited about it! Deep sea diving has always freaked me out and the idea of people dropping dead when you're locked together in a decompression chamber is absolutely horrific. Unfortunately, this book had one of my least favorite tropes so my enjoyment really plummeted, especially the ending. I think if this book didn't have that trope and if it was more of a horror than a thriller, this would've really worked for me! The concept was great but that's about where my enjoyment ended. I felt like the characters were all super flat and I didn't really care once they started dying or when you started learning more about them. I think I would give this author another shot because maybe this just wasn't the right book for me, but my expectations are going to be super low.

This authors work really pulls you in and makes you turn the pages long 8th the night. Atmospheric and suspenseful. ,

Will Dean's work are always so incredibly claustrophobic while being simultaneously enjoyable and while I'm not fully sure I understand how he does it, I really enjoy his books. The Last One was one of my favorite reads the year it came out so needless to say I was anxiously awaiting this release. The science-talk bogged it down just a little bit for me but overall I really enjoyed this and look forward to picking up more by this author.

I absolutely loved The Chamber! Will Dean put is in a whole new world. I loved learning about saturation diving. What those people would go through is beyond me. Such a good book!

Oh this book was terrifying at times! Especially listening to the audiobook. I felt so claustrophobic and it made my heart race. I even held my breath at times. It’s very unsettling, but yet I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s so atmospheric and very well written! I really enjoy Will Deans books.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!
As a claustrophobic person who can’t swim, this book was my nightmare in written form. Add murder into the mix? You would think with such a limited number of characters in that small a space, it wouldn’t work..,but it sure does!

I love Will Dean. I find all of his books to be so good and terrifying in their own ways. The Chamber was no exception and I spent the whole read going back and forth on what I thought was happening. It was a great read, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

This book had an interesting setting and was a thrilling locked-room mystery. I liked learning about saturation diving since I didn’t know about it before. It was a really exciting story!

The Chamber by Will Dean is a claustrophia-inducing locked room mystery set in the world of deep sea saturation diving. From the beginning, the reader is introduced to the tight, tiny space that the six deep sea divers plan to call home for four weeks. The bunks are barely big enough for anyone to stretch out in and are within stretching distance to the dining area, which is a pace away from the "wet pot" where the divers shower and use the restroom. There is literally no room for anyone to stretch or stand up straight - and that's why the divers love their time outside the chamber on their solo dives where they get six hours to stretch, spin, walk, jump, etc while working on whatever repairs they are assigned to do far below the surface.

As the story progresses, the reader is introduced to the six divers working and living together. They're all experienced and all excited for the job. As the reader experiences the thick, humid, confined enclosure with them, we're also given back stories of the divers and learn about past dives and things that went wrong for them. And suddenly, on day four, a diver dies. The crew is informed that they will be brought back up to the surface, but it will take a while as they have to go through decompression so the crew doesn't get sick. But then another diver dies. And another. Things are getting panicky and the remaining divers do not know who to trust. And the people up above are not giving them any information or news from the surface.

The plot of this one really grabs you. I thought for sure this would be a quick read for me. But it turned out to take me forever to get through it. It was extrememly slow - with many many back stories and "war stories" of the crews previous dives. We also slog through our main character, Ellen's internal and often intrusive thoughts. The fast paced parts were few and far between and the conclusion was so confusing, leaving the reader unsure as to what truly happened in the chamber.

There were still many suspenseful parts and the in depth information about sat diving and decompression chambers was quite interesting to me (at first). I had not read any other books by Dean, but I know many people recommend them - I personally think they're for a certain type of reader and not for everyone.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.