I felt confused and claustrophobic while reading this locked room mystery. I found the diving aspect quite interesting and the whole decompression in the chamber suspenseful. The characters names and nicknames went back and forth which I found confusing. There were some unexpected twists but the end was too vague for my liking. I am still trying to figure out the ending . Many reviewers loved it but it wasn't for me.

Copy provided by the publisher and Netgalley

I certainly am in awe of Sat divers for their expertise and ability to live in such claustrophobic conditions . This book gave me a glimpse into their lives however the book itself was very repetitive and basically a litany of stories that each diver divulged about their past dives and present lives. The ending was quick and unsettling with the deaths of four experienced divers not really solved .

This is a tough one.

I loved the concept of this one - And Then There Were None but set it in a hyperbaric chamber with 6 saturation divers. Sounds awesome and claustrophobic and propulsive.

I am sorry to say I was SO bored! Basically other than the divers dying one by one - this book just really is a lot of information about saturation diving - which was interesting but if I wanted that level of information, I would watch a documentary about it - and then a ton of conversations with people in a tight space together talking about their previous dives throughout their career.

I was invested enough that I wanted to see how it was all going to wrap up and what was actually happening - but then when I got to the end I closed the book and literally said "REALLY?" out loud. I just felt that there were so many unanswered questions and it just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I may be an outlier here. I know A LOT of readers who love Will Dean's book. This is my second one that I finished reading and just felt MEH about so I think I will move on from his books and let those that love them give rave reviews. Sorry!!!

Esoteric Atmospheric Tale Not For The Faint Of Heart. Straight up, this is one of those truly esoteric books that, even with the glossary and map up front, isn't going to work for everyone - despite not being fantasy *at all*, and in fact because it is perhaps *too* real.

This is the world of Saturation Diving, where divers work underwater under pressure for weeks on end, often repairing cabling or piping or other undersea infrastructure that makes above ground life possible/ globally connected for the rest of us. And here, Dean is as exacting in his depiction of the actual lives of these people as Andy Weir was in The Martian, with *even more* technical discussion since so much of this particular book is a group of these divers living and working together as they do in the real world - warts and all.

And yes, there are also larger forces at play - but we only see those from *inside* the Chamber, through the eyes of our sole narrator. (Ans some scream: "Yay! No multiple perspectives!" :D)

Overall one of the more interesting tales of 2024 just because of how true it is to its real-world subject material and how rare any open discussion of that particular role in modern society really is - but truly, be forewarned: It is extremely esoteric *due* to how rare that job is in the real world *and* the tale can be truly slow or even incomprehensible for some readers, if you simply can't wrap your mind around what is happening in such a tiny and closed off space. For those that can though, this is truly a fascinating book on a few different levels.

Very much recommended.

Many thanks to the publisher for my gifted copy.

I am a huge Will Dean fan. I love everything he writes. Although, this has been my least favorite from him it was still enjoyable. I'm already excited for his next book!

I read this book in 1 day. I'm terrified of the water and being in cramped spaces, so this whole book made it hard to breathe.

6 saturation divers are locked in a hyperbaric chamber. After the first day, members of the team begin dying. Is it something sinister? Or is it just contamination?

This book was scary and fast paced, something I come to expect from Will Dean books.

Will Dean! This wasn't as good as his first book but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I recommend for spooky season!

The Chamber by Will Dean is an exciting, intense, locked room thriller! In a unique setting, a hyperbaric chamber used by deep sea “saturation divers,” mysterious mini-disasters occur, and the six divers in the chamber experience harrowing moments, psychological strain, and complicated emotions added on to the intensity of their life-or-death work.
When their fellow divers begin to die mysteriously, the intensity accelerates as those who remain must try to figure out how and why things are going so terribly wrong.
Dean’s prose is wonderfully descriptive, especially of the beauty of the deep sea, “space inverted.” Details about living far underwater, daily life in a cramped chamber and the technical details of saturation diving and life as an aquanaut are fascinating.
Be advised there are graphic details and imagery of some of the unpleasant outcomes of injury and death in this situation. The allusions to Shakespeare’s works throughout the book are especially meaningful.
No spoilers here, this is an edge-of-your-seat, stay up and read all night thriller!
The main character, Ellen Brooks, is a smart, tough, but sympathetic character who mentally juggles pragmatism of her high-risk chosen occupation with her emotions about missing her husband and kids back on land. The rest of the characters are nicely fleshed out and believable, making this novel character driven as well as action driven.
This is such unique locked room suspense. Grab this and get ready for an incredibly intense thriller!

Thank you to Atria/Emily Bestler Books and NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review.

It started off well--I was intrigued by the locked room mystery concept and learned about saturation diving which I knew nothing about previously. But it really slowed down after the first several chapters and I kept getting bored/distracted.

Sadly, I didn't enjoy this. I was originally so excited to read this but ended up overhyping this in my head. I was very underwhelmed throughout the entire book :( I think the author wanted to fit way too much into this book that it took away from the plot. I'm familiar with the topic especially diving, but it still felt like it was so slow and certain events were just randomly thrown in to make it more exciting. The ending was very anti-climatic and I felt like nothing really ended up happening.

I do see a lot of other readers loving this book, so while it may not have been for me, you might enjoy this book. I do want to give the author another chance, because I've heard great things about his previous thriller, The Last One.

I love this author and again his newest book The Chamber did not disappoint. I did feel that the start of this book was somewhat slow and a little much with the details- I felt slightly confused and hoped the remaining of the book was not as technical. I pushed through and did enjoy the story and really liked the characters. I do think this one is my least favorite book of his so far, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

Will Dean, you’ve done it again. You’ve had us holding our breath, literally underwater.

Well researched, fast paced, edge of your seat waiting to see what happened and who did it.

This is my second read by Dean, and it was everything I expected after reading The Last One.

Solid 4.5 stars!

Thank you NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler Books for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Classic Will Dean! I loved his last book (the one on a cruise ship) and was not disappointed with this, though the two books are very different. I feel like I got a lot of knowledge about what these divers did yet it was really interesting. It was a little long for a book in the mysteries space but overall, I think this is a solid read.

2.5⭐️ rounded up

I loved the setting and the feeling of claustrophobia throughout this book. The build up of stress when the main character was diving made me feel like I was experiencing it too. I appreciated the glossary in the beginning, as some of the diving descriptions were quite technical.

I found the names/nicknames hard to keep track of. It was also slow for most of the book, then picked up at the end and finished abruptly. There wasn’t much explanation about what happened and I was hoping for a twist or at the very least, more resolution.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The beginning of this book was kind of slow, but once the deaths started happening the pace picked up! My theory throughout the whole book was that the main characters family was dead, and I loved being right. There was still surprises I didn’t see coming! The main character being the killer was kind of a surprise, especially with her framing the other survivor for the murders! She’s fully convinced he did it, and she didn’t. It makes me sad for the guy!

I was back and forth on my rating for this one and I think ultimately, the pacing is what took me down to a 2. It just didn’t have any suspense or enough twists along the way to keep me tethered. I didn’t mind the thorough diving explanations or chatter, but the author kept the cast very unorganized with their real name vs nicknames using the interchangeably and it got very confusing. I didn’t feel connected with anyone and frankly, didn’t care about anyone’s fates.

Excellent! A fun locked room read that I thoroughly enjoyed. SAT diving isn't something I was very familiar with so it was fun to learn about the trade while following along with a suspenseful thriller. I have some questions about the ending but I overall throughly enjoyed the story.

The first 60% of the book flew by. I was absolutely entranced by the descriptions of the ocean beds...the giant monsters beneath the ocean are terrifying. Then the descriptions of being enclosed in such a small space made me feel things! The last 40% was a bit slower, the last few hours of decompression- but still great.

Character development was excellent. A huge bombshell dropped around 75% and it was heart wrenching.

My only beef with this story was mainly the ending. I feel like there was a huge lead up to something huge but I felt a bit let down. Maybe I just need to process it a bit more!

Overall I would definitely read more from this author!!

I love books that center around a niche job or location that I don't know anything about and I have to learn more both through the book and I am also interested or curious enough about it to look it up on my own. In this case the topic is saturation diving. This was the true interesting part of the book, not necessarily the mystery or the actual "chamber" itself. We get a brief orientation to sat diving as well as an introduction to the characters on board the vessel and then the rest of the ExTREMELY locked room mystery is pretty slow burn. This was a scenario where I could not imagine being trapped with the bodies of my comrades. After all the fuss of the mystery I felt that the explanation of how the crew was dying and who the culprit was ended up being a bit flimsy in my opinion. But I will say - I was entertained and I learned some new things so I do recommend!

3.5 ⭐️rounded up. I love Will Dean’s books. I enjoyed this book for the most part. He did a fantastic job of explaining the logistics of the deep sea diving job and making you feel like you were there. There were suspenseful and short chapters that ended on cliffhangers and made you want to keep reading. The downside for me was he didn’t do a very good job of developing the male characters enough to distinguish them from one another. I was halfway through the book and still wasn’t sure who was who. Also the ending was very confusing to me. It was sort of abrupt and left me feeling like I had no idea what actually happened. What was the motivation? Overall I would recommend if you like closed space thrillers and would recommend watching the documentary Last Breath if you enjoyed this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria books for the Advanced readers copy of this book!

As someone that has claustrophobia, i expected to feel more trapped than I did. Although there was moments of feeling like that, this book was way too much of a slow burn to me. A lot of moments were spent on who done it and just wasting time. This was just not for me.