The Chamber: A Novel by Will Dean
Product Details
Web ID: 19876486Terrifying Submarine
With the recent submarine sinking, this book was a must read. The claustrophobia of having to be inside of the tank was terrifying, not to mention all of the events that took place in the dark waters. The ocean is such a mysterious place as it is, the story took that wonder and amped up the intensity tenfold.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
This one grew on me
This book was a 4 to me until the end; I thought it was predictable with all the repetitions, and it became a 4.5 rounded to 5 because of the resolution of her inner/mental journey. This is a novel that you get the truth only of you read all, that's what endings are for. I jumped right into this one for the setting. A claustrophobic chamber where a few divers are trapped and dying one by one. It has a lot of flashbacks to their past actions, traumas, and memories. In a whodunit novel, one of them is a murderer. I think the author intended the novel to be confusing in some parts, creating more tension. We are constantly saying. Wait, what? And because of that, I binged the book nonstop, trying to understand what was happening. The usage of purple language and metaphors to describe their feelings and intrusive thoughts leads us to the wrong clues and path sometimes. I think Ellen feels this unbearable and relatable guilt for being diving and not with her family more than having done some secret crime in her past.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Don't forget to breathe!!!
In this tense and suspenseful locked-room thriller, six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. After one diver is found dead, the group must watch each other closely as more mysterious deaths occur. With four days to go until they can safely exit the chamber, paranoia and suspicion build as they try to uncover what is taking them out one by one. Will any of them survive the pressure and tension before time is up? This book evoked a sense of claustrophobia within me, causing me to remember to take deep breaths as I delved into its pages. The author skillfully immerses the reader into the world of deep-sea diving, making you feel as though you are one of the divers exploring the depths of the ocean. The level of detail and research put into this book is evident, creating a sense of realism that is both captivating and thrilling. As someone with personal experience in open water diving, I found myself learning even more about the topic through the eyes of the characters in the book. Each character was flawed, harboring their own secrets that kept me guessing until the very end. The suspense and mystery surrounding the plot made it impossible to determine who was responsible for the events unfolding, leaving me shocked by the unexpected ending. The vivid descriptions of the underwater environment added to the overall drama and panic that one feels while reading about tight spaces and the discovery of a dead body. The author's writing style is engaging and keeps the reader on the edge of their seat, making this book a truly interesting and captivating read. If you enjoy books that will leave you breathless and guessing until the very end, then this book is must-read.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Pressure, heat, and fear
Are you claustrophobic? If there’s one thing you definitely can’t be if you want to be a saturation diver, it’s claustrophobic. You have to train even the slightest amount of animal instinct to back out of too-tight spaces out of your system in order to be a saturation diver. You also have to quickly grow okay with the idea of being packed into a very tight space (smaller than a train car) with five other fully-grown adults under increased pressure and temperature while you’re all up in each other’s business for about a month. Thank goodness we’re merely readers, so all we have to worry about is if these kinds of things trigger us before we read. If they don’t, then we just get treated to a suspense thriller about six saturation divers who go down in their chamber while in the North Sea and they start mysteriously dying. This is advertised as a locked-room mystery, but it really isn’t. If you go into this expecting it to be a traditional locked room, you’ll be disappointed. It’s closer to a closed-loop, but it’s not even truly that because there’s almost an element of possible conspiracy to the mystery in this story. Every time it seems as if the field of suspects has narrowed, Will Dean creates opportunities for the list of suspects to either widen or to shift, changing the perspective and/or the motive. That’s the largest part of the charm behind The Chamber: Divers, just like other people who live their lives on the sea and do their jobs based on a very strict set of rules and rituals, can be set very off course by ill omens and superstitions. One bad omen can shift a character’s (maybe more than one) entire point of view and it could roll into a completely unrelated event, tainting it with a seeming darkness that otherwise may not have colored it so. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or maybe it’s not all in your mind. Or maybe it’s both. Will Dean’s last two books have been absolutely bangers for me, but The Chamber left a little to be desired in the way of excitement for me. I felt the suspense. I felt the claustrophobia. I felt the paranoia and germaphobia. I felt the pressure, the heat, and the fear. For some reason, though, I didn’t feel engaged with the story or compelled to keep reading. The story lacked propulsion. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was while I was reading and I still can’t. I just felt like I could walk away from this book and it wouldn’t really matter. Will Dean is a wonderful writer and this is a great book, so I totally recommend it. I just didn’t feel like I needed to finish this story in order to get on with my life. This is a wonderful story, though.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Intense and captivating from start to finish!
Locked-room mysteries are a hit-or-miss for me, even though the premise sounds appetizing. However, "The Chamber" stands out as a unique and intriguing addition to the genre, making it one of the definite hits I've read this summer! If you are into diving, this story is even more fascinating. While a bit over my head, it's full of diving facts and information that add an intriguing layer to the story. I wish I could fully grasp and remember all the facts and information I read! The story is set in a hyperbaric saturation chamber. The narrator, Ellen, is the only female diver among the six crew members, which is interesting because the author is male. The tension ramps up when a crew member is found dead in his bunk, and the decompression process begins, lasting four days. Things become even more intense when another member falls ill, and they don't have any answers. The confined, pressurized environment of the chamber, the constant need for cleanliness, and the looming threat of deadly bacteria make for a truly gripping read. If you're a diving enthusiast or a mystery lover, this book is a must-read that will keep you captivated from start to finish! Get ready for an incredible ending in "The Chamber"! It's absolutely mind-blowing and will leave you stunned, yet possibly satisfied. Thank you to Atria Books/Emily Bestler Books for this ARC provided via NetGalley. All opinions are my own and leftvoluntarily. #TheChamber #WillDean #AtriaBooks @EmilyBestlerBooks #NetGalley #ARC #pageturner #reader #read #honestreview #thriller #bookreviewer #thrillerbooklovers #thepulse #pulsepoint #thrillerfriendsunite #thrillerobsessedbookishclub #ReadersOfTheLateArc #TalkWordyToMeTeam #lovetoread #lovebooks #booknerd #readaholic #bookstagrammer #booktok #booktoker
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Atmospheric nightmare!!!
Talk about an atmospheric nightmare!!! I don’t like the idea of being in a confined space and this book definitely takes you on a journey! The story is from the POV of Ellen Brooks who is a saturation diver, and she takes on an assignment with 5 other men to go deep into the sea for one month. The problem starts when one of them ends up dead. Was it an unfortunate accident or was this intentional. Imagine being in a cramped room with 4 other people and you’re not 100% sure if one of them might be responsible for the death of one of your colleagues and you have nowhere to go because you can’t just get pulled back up to the surface because otherwise you will die to the pressure changes. The story is very detailed in the things that the crew must do each time they eat and shower in order to ensure that bacteria doesn’t grow in what is a very humid space. As the story goes on, we learn a little bit of the past from each of the crew members and you can tell as time goes by that they are starting to mentally break. They must rely on each other to stay safe but at the same time they wonder if they can trust each other. The author uses a lot of deep diving terminology so that got confusing at times for me however, he does provide a glossary at the beginning of the book that can help. Overall, I liked the storyline and the atmosphere it took place in. I would have appreciated less of the terminology used and to have it “dumbed down” for me a bit but the story itself was good. Thank you Netgalley and Atria Books. All opinions are my own.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Claustrophobic horror story!
Well, thank you, Will Dean, for teaching me about the esoteric world of saturation diving and then promptly making me proclaim, “Nope. Never. Find a different profession.” After last year’s “The Last One,” in which Dean transformed a cruise ship into a haunted house, this time we’re in a claustrophobic hyperbaric chamber (with early 2000s technology). Five men and one woman are trying to rebalance the gases in their bodies so they don’t get the bends (decompression sickness). If they leave too early, they die painfully. But something/someone is killing them off one by one inside the chamber in this clever high stakes locked room mystery. The tale is told in a first person POV via Ellen, also a videographer, but an experienced saturation diver. The space is cramped but needs to be antiseptic. In a month, bacteria can grow rapidly in the humid conditions, affecting feet and ears. “Serious infections take hold with terrifying rapidity. Germs spread. They multiply and mutate. A team of six can be wiped out in hours in these confined, airless chambers.” This is a novel filled with tactile sensory images — keep imagining the small space the characters are in, but also the multiple bodily changes. The first person dies fairly early in what should be a monthlong job. A decision is made to depressurize the survivors to retrieve the body, but that will take four days. Four long days of decay and tension in a cramped space. And then another diver dies. Coincidence or murder? By the next incident, it’s obvious that some sort of evil is among them. Will Dean does another terrific job of scaring the life out of the reader. His saturation diving world is an unusual and very dangerous environment and the author does an incredible job of building suspense. 4 stars! Literary Pet Peeve Checklist: Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES The first character named, Mike Elliot, has green eyes. Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Everything is water. Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Takes a Strong Heart to Read this One
This closed-door (literally) thriller kept me on my toes and raised my blood pressure! I knew nothing about what was involved in saturation diving until I read this book. A complicated process to get humans to the depths of the ocean where they probably shouldn’t be at all! There are many technical terms in this one. The divers breathe helium (not just oxygen) in the chamber and wear suits filled with warm water. If something goes wrong, decompressing takes days before they can open the hatch. Our main narrator is Ellen, and it is somewhat rare to have a woman diver. She has to be in top physical condition to do the work. She’s worked with many of the divers before, and there’s a team atmosphere. She brings along pillowcases from her children and puts up photos to remember her family while she’s away for long stretches. She dives because of the lucrative paycheck. Ellen does her first dive, working on equipment at the bottom of the ocean. There’s a tense moment at the end when a valve is bumped. That’s nothing compared to the chaos that greets the team of two when they get back into the main chamber, though. One of the team mysteriously dies, and the entire operation must be scrapped. They must wait four long days to decompress (it’s a slow process), though. As tensions are heightened, the large team on the ship that works to keep the divers safe is frantically trying to determine what went wrong. Meanwhile, in the chamber, everyone is suspicious and anxious to escape. As other divers collapse, it becomes a rush to determine whether the threat is outside or within the chamber. Will anyone be alive at the end of decompression? This one has an ambiguous ending!
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com