The Chamber/One At A Time – Will Dean

HIGH PRESSURE OUTSIDE
On a boat heading out into the North Sea, Ellen Brooke steels herself to spend almost a month working underwater with five other divers. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust in the living quarters could be catastrophic.

EXTREME PRESSURE INSIDE
All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk. He hadn’t left the chamber. It will take four more days of decompression, locked away together, before the hatch can be opened. Four more days of wondering if one among you is a killer. The constant struggle not to give way to panic. Because if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies…

Well, this is a little embarrassing. I read The Chamber some time ago and realised that not only had I not written up my review (sorry Will), but that the book is now out in paperback with a new name, One At A Time.

In my defence, it’s probably taken me this long to get over the book. Will Dean has done a variety of locked-location mysteries over the years, from his little snowy town of Gavrick with his Tuva Moodyson series, but has taken this to a little extreme in this case, with possibly the smallest locked-room mystery I’ve ever read! Can you get any smaller than a hyperbaric chamber?

Six deep sea divers are on a job in the North Sea. They’re locked in a hyperbaric chamber and sent down to the sea bed to work, but before long there’s a death. And there are only five suspects…

And of course, they’re all in the same room, living on top of each other. It’ll take days to decompress safely, but can they last that long?

Suffice it to say, this is not a book for the claustrophobic. Incredibly tense, the paranoia and mind games at play make this a must finish in one sitting book. As someone with family in the navy, I think it added an extra level of nail-biting tension for me!

Absolutely brilliant. Read it, if you dare…

The Chamber / One At A Time by Will Dean is published by Hodder and is out now. Many thanks to the publisher for an advance copy for review via NetGalley.

I bought my hardback copy at The Rabbit Hole in Brigg where they hosted Will Dean doing a reading and signing. You can get a copy via bookshop.org here.