For fans of a good Locked Room mystery, 6 experienced saturation divers are starting their next job and will be locked in the hyperbaric chamber for 28 days. But when one of divers is found dead within days of the job starting, the other five divers are stuck decompressing for four days and wondering if they’re locked in with a killer.

I loved the concept of this story, and I was all onboard to try and figure out the murderer. I’m all for learning about new topics as well, but the first few chapters of The Chamber were heavy on the science talk, and I actually spent a good amount of time going down a rabbit hole and learning about saturation diving. While Dean does provide a helpful glossary at the beginning of the book, the complex nature of the subject matter really took away from the ‘story experience’.

Dean did do a great job of generating a claustrophobic feel to the story and I thoroughly enjoyed the setting. Outside of the murders though, not much actually happens, that combined with looking up more information on saturation diving, really slowed the pace of the story down for me.

Lastly, I never truly felt that we connected with any of the characters, including our narrator. While each character at points gives us stories about their past jobs and lives, the stories never drew me in, nor did they give me any clues as to who the murderer could be. If there were clues left for us in there, I completely missed them.

This is my second Will Dean book, and while I think he’s ideas are unique, I never fully connect with his characters and tend to find myself wanting just a bit more to the story. For The Chamber, I might know who the culprit is, but I still have no idea about the WHY, which is why I can’t give this anymore than 3 stars.

AMAZON | GOODREADS |★★★

The Chamber comes out August 6, 2024.  Thank you to Atria for my advanced copy in exchange for my review. If you liked this review, please let me know either by commenting below or by visiting my Instagram @speakingof.books.