The Chamber

A Novel

By: Will Dean

Narrated by: Helen Keeley

And Then There Were None meets The Last Breath in this tense and suspenseful locked-room thriller that takes place inside a hyperbaric chamber from the author of the “brilliant, twisted, and oh so clever” (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author) novel The Last Thing to Burn.

Six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. Calm and professional, they know that rapid decompression would be fatal and so they work in shifts, breathing helium, and surviving in hot close quarters.

Then one of them is found dead in his bunk.

With four days of decompression to go before the locked hatch to the chamber can be safely opened, the group must watch one another’s backs at all times. And when another diver is discovered unresponsive, everyone is on edge. What…or who…is taking them out one by one? And will any of them still be alive by the time the four days is up or will paranoia, exhaustion, suspicion, and pressure destroy them all?

©2024 Will Dean (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Not a bad story but has some technical issues

As a Navy sat diver from 70’s there were two things I took issue with. One is because the chamber hatch opens inward at depth the hatch can not be opened. Two is in the helox world the percentage of O2 is probably around 6% which does not support fire burning.

Different twist to a suspense story

Enjoyed learning about saturation diving. Great story line. Accents were sometimes difficult to understand ( listened via audible).

Never saw it coming

This storybos a deep dive into a world i knew nothing about, which is now added toy list of things not to do and even more people to feat

Great story

I really enjoyed this book and listened to the whole thing in one day. It moved quickly and kept me interested!

Keep guessing

The reader was really good and the story kept you guessing about “who done it”. A good read about something different from the norm

Excess Verbosity

It should have been good, perhaps such a small chamber made it difficult to create suspense. Too much information about diving. Helen Keeley made it possible to listen to the entire book even though I thought of quitting several times.

What?!?

I never write reviews. Ok, I once wrote a review for a watch. But after I finished this audiobook, I felt compelled. Let me start by saying this is a great concept and it's well-performed by the narrator. I have a great deal of respect for authors, in general, and for the book's editor, in particular. It's a tough thing to create books. The rest of this review contains spoilers. But on the bright side (if you're still reading) I can't really spoil the ending because I have no idea what happened.

A murder mystery should develop characters along lines that not only reveal the true motive but also take the reader down other plausible, even tantalizing, false imaginations. But here, we have no idea what motive the killer could possibly have had. The numerous stories told by the characters in the chamber never intersect or reveal any meaningful connection between the divers.

The reader of a thriller also deserves at least one unexpected plot twist. This book had ample opportunity for several! But how many intriguing details were tossed to the reader, only to be abandoned and never mentioned again (I'm looking at you, valve leak, time lapse between the start of the dive and the discovery of the corpse, Mike's journal, question of whether the boat is in port, ship invasion, Spock doppleganger, bad dreams, tampered kits, tampered video, etc.)?

Finally, even conceding the means, it's never clear that it's possible to poison someone, much less do it five times, in a saturation chamber on a ship constantly under video surveillance.

In the end, too much repetition (we get it - the conditions are uncomfortable), not enough plot, and no real ending.

Too many “stories”, not enough action.

This book reads like a diver’s memoir. It’s filled with diving stories that overtake the plot. The plot is thin and the author does not create a sense of panic or intensity that people certainly would have felt in this situation. I enjoyed the diving stories at first but eventually, I zoned out and just wanted to finish the book.