The Book:
The Chamber by Will Dean
Published August 6, 2024 by Atria
Date read: August 4, 2024
Find more August 2024 new releases here.
The Chamber spoilers can be found below, but they’re hidden under a spoiler tag so you’re safe to keep scrolling if you’d just like to read my review.
The Characters:
Ellen Brooke, the main character
Mike Elliot
Jumbo (Ellen’s mentor)
Tea Bag
Andre
Spock
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
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?
The Chamber Spoilers
The Reveal:
Tea Bag was the first to die. Ellen was out diving with Andre as her bellman. The others reported that they let him sleep in but then he just never woke up. They never noticed a pulse.
Spock was the next to go, then Mike.
The reader finds out that Ellen’s kids and husband are actually dead, although she’s been imagining them waiting on the shore for her a la The Woman in the Window. At this point, we realize she’s an unreliable narrator. The divers learn that the first three likely died from cyanide poisoning, and antidote kits are being sent to the ship.
Then Jumbo just keeled over while Ellen was in the chamber with him and Andre was in the shower. The antidote kits were just 20 minutes out, but didn’t arrive in time to save him. Things get heated between Ellen and Andre after that. Ellen’s intrusive thoughts worsen, and the reader has no idea whether Ellen is the killer.
When the hatch is finally opened, Andre begins to have symptoms, but the medics are able to save him. Ellen is arrested.
The Ending:
Then the book flashes to four months later, still Ellen’s POV. It has become evident that Andre was the killer–he had stored cyanide capsules in the hollow arms of his glasses and was dosing people one by one. The rationale was just that he was nuts, he didn’t have any particular motive against these people. Ellen’s narration mentions that multiple of his family members went crazy and then died at the same age he did, so it was likely something genetic compounded with the pressure (literal and figurative) of his job.
I really thought the final twist was going to be that Ellen set Andre up, but it wasn’t. I was expecting that somehow someone down there had something to do with her kids’ deaths. Ellen sold her house and was planning to go back to deep sea diving as soon as she was allowed–the bottom of the ocean was the only place she could sleep without being kept up by thoughts of her family.
I take back my previous paragraph. I guess there’s some ambiguity as to whether Andre or Ellen did it?? Ellen mentions hallucinations in which she sees herself buying the cyanide and stuffing it into the glasses, but to me it was clear that these weren’t real. I mean, the text literally says they’re not real! Apparently, though, other readers think this means she did it and is in denial.
Since I need answers, I DM’d Will Dean about this on Instagram. Check out his response below:
I hope these The Chamber spoilers were helpful.
The Review:
Thank you to Simon Audio for this gifted ALC.
Will Dean certainly loves his ambiguous endings! No spoilers here, but I was certain the ending meant one thing until a friend told me she thought differently.
THE CHAMBER is a locked room thriller on steroids, and this time the pressure is literal! Four deep-sea divers are locked in a hyperbaric chamber on the ocean floor. When divers start dying, there’s a four-day decompression required before the others can get out.
I loved how vividly this chamber was described. I could feel the anxiety of these characters mounting as the book went on, and was feeling a bit claustrophobic for them towards the end! Understandably, some characters began to go a bit nuts.
The technicalities of sat diving are explained really well, in a way that gets the gist across to someone like me who knows nothing about it without getting too caught up in explanations. The book has a glossary and images to help the reader out, too.
THE CHAMBER is a really fun read that will undoubtedly lead to some interesting discussions. If you’ve read it already, I would love to hear what you thought of the ending! If you haven’t yet, it’s out today. Happy reading!
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