My Review With Spoilers for The Chamber by Will Dean discusses how I (mostly) enjoyed the author’s prior book, The Last One, a thriller set on an ocean liner. So I decided to try The Chamber, which turned out to be a chilling locked room mystery with a VERY unusual setting. What did I think? Will you like it? Let’s discuss!
The Chamber by Will Dean: Overview
- Published in the US on August 6, 2024 by Atria/Emily Bestler
- Thanks to the publisher for the advance review copy
- 352 pages
- Also by this author: The Last Thing to Burn, First Born, The Last One, and a series of Swedish Noir mysteries
The Chamber by Will Dean: Jen’s Quick Take
- To me, The Chamber had a very different feel than The Last One (link to my spoiler review)
- One of the more unique Locked Room Mysteries I’ve read
- The Chamber included a lot of scientific/technical explanations of saturation diving, something I was completely unfamiliar with and would NEVER NEVER do.
- Also a VERY unusual and extremely claustrophobic setting
- I felt this extreme version of a locked room mystery did limit the character development and the mystery plot in ways I’ll explain below!
- But try this if you love a locked room mystery and want a unique spin on the concept
Review of The Chamber by Will Dean
If you love a Locked Room Mystery, The Chamber has one of the more unusual locked room settings I have seen.
Six people set off on a month-long work mission. They are saturation “sat” divers whose job is to maintain oil pipelines located in the depths of the North Sea, off the eastern coast of Scotland.
To do this maintenance work, a group of divers is locked in a small hyperbaric saturation chamber and sent to the bottom of the sea. From there, they will take turns going in pairs on day-long work assignments in a diving bell. All their needs (like food, vitamins, and supplies) are provided by a fully staffed DSV (dive support vessel).
Seriously, the information in that paragraph would have been hard for me to piece together by just reading the book. I found this article helpful and this field needs to be a Discovery Channel series, because WHAT EVEN? People really do this job and I am in awe.
So, where’s the mystery? One by one, the sat divers on a work trip start dying. The chamber is a dangerous place, where germs and bacteria can spread like wildfire and one wrong move can spell disaster. But this seems different. Why are the divers dying? Accident, or murder?
The strength of The Chamber to me was its unusual setting
I’m claustrophobic and found reading this book almost unbearable. Like being buried alive. For hours.
For me, the negatives of The Chamber were several:
Given the length of the book and all the explanation of the setting that was needed, there was not much time for character development.
Because of the book’s unusual setting, the story required a large amount of info-dumping.
To me, the ending that felt a little unsatisfying. The suspense in the book was greater than any sense of mystery, if that makes sense. I’ll explain more in the spoiler section below.
If you are looking for something completely different in the locked room lane, give The Chamber a try.
Spoilers for the Chamber by Will Dean
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If you’ve read The Chamber, I’d love to know what you think! Please leave your questions in the comments! And tell me what your worst phobia is!!
I agree with your review. I am enthralled with Mr. Dean’s books. He is truly gifted at writing. I finished The Chamber in 2 sittings. The tension was tangible for me. My sense of time felt distorted as I was reading. I felt claustrophobic. The suspense was driving me to turn the pages. Even with an excellent plot, some books don’t deliver those thrilling sensations. True, the character development is a bit nebulous except for Ellen. But I’m not quibbling. To enjoy art fully is to suspend one’s disbelief. So I am not going to dwell too much on Andre’s motivations other than he had “put his head above his hat”. I will savor this thrilling novel in its unique and fascinating setting for a long time. Thanks.
I agree! No book can have everything and the unique world of this book makes it memorable. “Put his head above his hat” is a very intriguing saying I haven’t heard before and am going to have to think about that!!
Oh, my worst phobia is snakes,ugh I don’t even like writing the word,lol
Interesting. I don’t mind them, but do NOT put me in an enclosed space!
Great review! I was torn.
1. While the whole reason I was drawn to this book was it being a mystery/thriller, I actually ended up finding the descriptions of sat diving and diving stories fascinating and found myself very uninvested in the actual mystery. I wanted more diving information and the tragic yet compelling diver stories by the
2.I don’t like when novels solve a mystery by offering up a killer seemingly randomly with no real motive, and here the explanation given could have fit literally any diver and the divers Ellen worked with were also pretty interchangeable as characters. But I do give the author credit for the fact that it was presented as a very real life solution, as in we so often don’t have detailed motives in cases of multiple or mass murders. Also, I appreciated that the author avoided another thing I can’t stand: when the murderer is a character who we previously knew little about and in the end there’s a huge information dump explaining a complicated backstory and motive.
3.The claustrophobia was REAL and I have a terrible case of it so I feel you on that!
4.Ellen was a great character and the intrusive thoughts issue she had was both interesting and a great plot device for casting that unreliable narrator suspicion on her.
5.I guessed that her family was dead early on and I rarely ever guess anything in mysteries. If I’m right it makes me dislike a mystery because I specifically don’t TRY to guess anything, I prefer to just immerse myself in the story and ho for the ride. But the thoughts/letters to her husband and references to her children literally made me think “Oh, she talks so similarly to Anna from The Woman in the Window, her family is definitely dead.” So your comparison to that book in your review hit home for me but I hated that it seemed so obvious to me and I wasn’t surprised!
Wow thanks for this great and thoughtful comment.
First off, I agree – the setting was absolutely AMAZING. I had no idea this kind of work was a thing and it is fascinating.
The character development and motive were a bit of a stumbling block for me. Workplace mass murders are usually disgruntled/fired employees but I think given the setting I think the book could have used the extreme pressure of this very unique workplace to help explain the killer’s psychology. Not sure I’d be homicidal under those conditions, but as a claustrophobic introvert, I’d find it unbearable!!! I can also see how that kind of workplace might appeal to someone trying to run away from personal issues. I can’t remember if the book discussed any psych screening for the sat diving employees, but it would make sense given what they are asked to do. I knew someone who was the sibling of an astronaut and they have to undergo a lot of psychological screening to make sure that no one loses it (as I would in space!!)
As for Ellen’s family …SAME. I was getting ALL the Woman in the Window vibes from her and I was positive I was right about that. It did humanize her a lot and I wonder if the shock value of springing it on us at the end was worth it and that should have been disclosed earlier.