[arc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Chamber releases August 6, 2024

Haunting and claustrophobic. This suspenseful, locked room thriller was my nightmare come to life and I will never view raspberry jam the same way ever again.

Six saturation divers are confined to very close living quarters in a hyperbaric chamber for a month, but when a diver unexplainably dies on their first day, everything changes. The remaining divers must wait out the necessary four days of decompression time before they can be released, though who’s to say if everyone will make it out alive?

Dean created a setting that was wholly immersive, with stakes that were incredibly high from the moment the characters stepped foot into the chamber.
The meticulous hygiene routines paired with the constant need to keep calm and maintain a levelled headspace were aspects of this novel that really fascinated me.

I loved every minute of this, even if it made me feel uncomfortable and tingly in my own skin!

Thank you NetGalley and publisher.

One of the most tense locked-room thrillers of recent memory. Another brilliant work by Will Dean!

A team of saturation divers prepare to work on the sea floor. During a month long job they will live inside a hyperbaric chamber. The pressure must be managed cautiously from outside to safeguard against serious injuries or death. When one of them dies within the chamber, the others begin to worry. Unfortunately the process of returning to open air is not quick. These things must be done slowly. Confined in tight quarters how well do they know each other? Their reliance on others on the outside concerns even more. Are they all at risk? Was this natural causes or foul play? Paranoia, fear, and intense emotions grow as the countdown to opening the chamber gets closer. Will anyone make it out alive?

Will Dean is a mastermind at playing with paranoia. All of these characters have been through trauma in their lives, their current situation only makes that grow. The locked chamber makes you question who could be most suspicious, but don't forget the six divers depend on everything from the outside. This book was a slow burn at first that kicked into high gear quickly. There are several mentions of loss within the story, so be warned. Thank you Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book.

Will Dean is a favorite author of mine. This author writes in a way that you gladly join in. He writes interesting narratives and then I begin to feel uncomfortable, terrified maybe and then I’m hooked. And I’m saying, “What in the world?”
This one was a slow burn for the suspense because of the place it would all go down. Diving seems interesting but terrifying and the writing made me trust no one!
Thanks Atria books via NetGalley.

I immediately requested this because I loved Dean's The Last Thing To Burn. I suffer from major claustrophobia, so I wanted to try to read this to see if I could get through it. There were just too many technical terms for me to try to enjoy this. The feeling of being hot and trapped was also so realistic, that ass the reader that I had to walk outside a couple of times. I think if you enjoy books that you want to learn something about that you've never really researched before, this would be for you. I just got tremendously bored in the beginning.

This took a locked room thriller to a new level. Six saturation divers find themselves trapped in a hyperbaric chamber miles below the North Sea after a crewmate mysteriously dies. The decompression process forces them to remain confined for a grueling four days, creating a pressure cooker of suspicion and fear.

As another diver perishes, paranoia and mistrust grip the remaining crew. The author's vivid descriptions make you feel the claustrophobia and rising tension alongside the characters, desperate for answers and a chance to breathe fresh air.

Will Dean clearly did a lot of research. I had no idea what saturation diving was but it’s all understandably laid out when you start the book. I could visualize everything perfectly.

I was completely immersed in this book and was suspicious of every diver and crewmate. The finger of suspicion point in many directions and you won't get answers until closer to the end, which keeps the tension and suspense at a constant high.

Thank you Atria Books, NetGalley and Will Dean for an advanced copy. The Chamber comes out August 6, 2024.

This was INTENSE. Will Dean is a master of suspense and dread. I am, once again, blown away by this author’s ability to write a thriller that really gets the heart rate up. After loving Will Dean’s last book, I had to give this one a go. I’m so glad I did.

This is a locked room mystery/thriller that takes place in a hyperbaric chamber. Six sat divers are going down to do work on the seabed. They must live inside this pressurized chamber for a month because of the pressure at the bottom of the sea. They don’t breathe air, they breathe a gaseous mix of helium and oxygen. They’re not able to make calls home because the helium makes their voices intelligible without an unscrambler. So, a month basically cut off and dependent on the ship’s crew to keep them alive and fed. What could possibly go wrong? After the first dive, the divers start to die one by one. It takes time to depressurize and open the chamber hatch, so they’re stuck inside the chamber without knowing who, or what, is killing them.

This book was so well done. You can feel the walls closing in, the claustrophobic dread our characters are feeling. I honestly had anxiety after the very first chapter. This is a page turner you won’t want to put down. Seriously, read this book!! It’s absolutely fantastic and heart pounding. This book gets 5 stars from me. Thank you so much to Netgalley and Atria Books for this ARC! Can’t wait for this author’s next book!!

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒓 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆. 𝑰𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒎𝒃𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔, 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒖𝒎𝒂, 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒕𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇; 𝒔𝒑𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅, 𝒔𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒉𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒂 𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒚 𝒊𝒔.

I'm a reader who consumes a steady diet of thrillers and horror, the more extreme the better. I could never have predicted the effect this book had on me. No lie, it very nearly induced a panic attack. I suffer from thalassophobia, a fear of the ocean and large bodies of water, but as I always tell myself, "it's just a book." Not in this case.

THE CHAMBER is a locked room thriller that takes place inside a hyperbaric chamber. The author added a glossary at the beginning of the book, and since I'm totally unfamiliar with any terms related to diving, it was quite helpful. The pervasive sense of dread kicked in for me almost immediately because guess what? I'm also claustrophobic, and reading about SIX divers in such narrow confines, breathing only helium, and enduring four days of decompression before the hatch can open was almost too much to bear.

The plot hasn't even started yet, and I'm already on edge.

One of the six is inexplicably found dead in his bunk. Who could have killed him in such tight quarters without anyone bearing witness? Suddenly, the paranoia kicks in. The person who passes the crew hot water and food; could he have poisoned the food? When it happens again, the sense of desperation kicks in. Who is picking these divers off one by one, and why?

Be ready for a completely atmospheric, immersive read. I love the little snippets of life outside the chamber as it allowed me to know and bond with the characters in an environment away from where they are trapped. Coming August 6, 2024! Thank you to Atria/Emily Bestler Books for the early copy.

Very technical in the beginning. Loved Will Dean's other books. This one I did not feel was as good. All the teachnical stuff made it hard to get interested in the story. It did get better. 3 stars

Six experienced saturation divers (divers who remain pressurized for a period of time, often for weeks), are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber on a job. Rapid decompression would cause death. They spend their time working two to a shift and otherwise live in very close quarters (think an extended VW bus.) Then one of them is found dead. Their chamber cannot be opened for four days. Then a second diver is found unresponsive. What is happening? And will any of them survive?

Oh, this was a really good, tense thriller. First, the topic was so interesting. I love books which cover an intriguing topic and saturation diving and the crazy, wonderful people who are willing to do it was a perfect choice. I was totally unaware that this even existed, and I was fascinated to learn the specifics about it. The author hit all the right notes, giving readers just enough information without overloading the text with unnecessary technical stuff. Loved that.

Then, the mystery itself. Also very good. A locked room mystery set in a literal metal tube. It doesn’t get much better than that. The suspects were almost never out of sight of one another. I did guess the culprit, but not the why, and the whole thing was incredibly satisfying. Giving this one 4.5 stars, which might be high, but I just enjoyed it so thoroughly and I couldn’t go to bed until I finished it. Highly recommended.

Will Dean has done it again! This book had me holding my breath and immersed in the claustrophobia from chapter one. We follow a small group of divers as they descend to the ocean depths in a tight packed hyperbaric chamber. When one of the diverse turns up inexplicably dead in his bunk, the dive gets called off. But decompression to bring the team back up takes 4 days, and as time goes things turn bad and worse. I literally felt dizzy at times reading this! The author did such an incredible job immersing us in the tight quarters of the chamber with the divers. This truly felt like such a unique thriller and I can’t wait for the rest of the world to get their hands on this too.