Count To Ten

Count Along if You Dare Following along with a murder can be a grisly but morbidly intriguing ordeal, but it becomes a more unnerving matter entirely if you’re following the culprit every step of the way. In “Count to Ten”, author Raul Quintana Selleras has us meet with The Chaos Killer well within his murderous spree before going back a lifetime or two in order to show us how and why it all went down. With the crimes already committed years prior, we’re left with a unique sense of dread as we know that each murder is fated and yet we are ultimately helpless in being able to intervene or prevent them from ever taking place. The true fear, however, comes from spending all that time inside the mind of a killer. Quintana Selleras pens a thrilling and awfully intimate psychological profile throughout. So just how complicit are we all in The Chaos Killer’s crimes?

"I went into this expecting a standard serial‑killer thriller, but once I read the opening chapters I immediately knew this book was going to be darker, stranger, and way more psychological than I anticipated. The way it was narrated gave me that prickly feeling of being pulled into someone’s weird logic. One line stuck with me: the apartment smelled of """"""""decaying flesh, piss, and human feces,” which tells you exactly how grim this book is willing to get. But what really hooked me wasn’t the gore but the narrator’s obsession with patterns, meaning, and control. Even from these first pages, the book sets up this weird cat‑and‑mouse story while you try to piece together what’s real and what’s manipulation. It’s unsettling in a way that thriller fans will appreciate. Definitely a fascinating read!"

This story reeled me in from the very beginning. It takes you into the mind of Ryan who has done some very disturbing things but feels that he can explain why he did them in a way that will make you understand his reasoning. Truly, Ryan’s view of the world is twisted, but sometimes his thoughts sound almost sensible – which is very unsettling to think about but you’re also hearing this through Ryan’s version of the truth so it can leave you with lots of questions and thoughts. The ending of the book stayed with me long after I finished it. Ryan believes everything that he did was completely necessary to be free – a chilling point when you consider what happened to other people for him to become “free.”

"Raúl Quintana Selleras does something bold with Count to Ten: he introduces you to the killer early, lets you live inside his head, and then dares you to keep reading. It's a gamble that pays off, because the tension doesn't come from not knowing who did it, it comes from understanding why, and realizing that understanding is its own kind of horror. The novel follows Ryan Morris, a police officer, family man, and meticulous observer of the world around him. He's also the Chaos Killer, and the book unfolds as something between a confession and a manifesto. Ten boxes. Ten secrets. A countdown that doubles as a life story. The structure is ambitious, and for the most part it works — the numbered chapters create momentum, and the shifting timelines let you piece together Ryan's past alongside his present. What I found most compelling was the twin relationship. Ryan and Evan are mirrors who've spent their whole lives refusing to reflect each other. Evan is the artist, impulsive and chaotic. Ryan is the planner, controlled and judgmental. Their mother's influence, their father's distance, the years of quiet competition, all of it feeds into the psychological complexity that makes this book more than just a serial killer story. By the time the present-day confrontation arrives, it feels earned. Years of resentment finally dragged into the light. The writing itself is sharp. Classical references are woven throughout, and the killer's voice is unsettling precisely because it's so reasonable. Ryan doesn't sound like a monster. He sounds like someone explaining a series of logical decisions. That's what makes him frightening. There are moments where the graphic content will lose some readers — this is not a book for the faint of heart. But for those who appreciate dark, intelligent crime fiction that explores identity, obsession, and the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions, Count to Ten is a standout. It's bleak, it's clever, and it refuses to offer easy answers. Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers, unreliable narrators, and morally complicated fiction. Just don't expect to sleep easily afterward."

"I went in blind and that was the right call. *Count to Ten* isn't your typical catch-the-killer thriller — you already know who he is. The real question is why, and the answer takes its sweet time unspooling in the most uncomfortable way possible. Ryan is one of those narrators you can't quite shake. Calm. Reasonable. Utterly terrifying once you realize how his mind works. The twin dynamic with Evan adds this whole other layer of tension that I didn't see coming. Graphic? Yes. Twisted? Absolutely. But there's actual intelligence behind the darkness, and the classical references gave it a strange, almost elegant edge. Perfect for October reading. If you like your thrillers bleak and psychological, this one delivers."

"Reading through this psychologically morbid murder spree was a perfect scene setter for the fall months and October on the horizon. I love the style of setting up who the main culprit is and then flashing back to showcase how we got to the point we are at. In my own brain, I kept getting images of the movie Seven with Brad Pitt. They don't seem to be related pieces of work, but some of the scenes in the book made me picture some of the scenes from the movie. I think it just helped me to capture more of what I was reading. Certainly going to pass this one along for others to read. Again, it's the perfect time of year for this with Halloween around the corner."

I've read far too many whodunits, and this approach, where you meet the killer up front and then learn why he did it, worked perfectly for me. Knowing who he is from the start didn't take away any of the tension. It made me pay closer attention, because I kept wondering how much of his version I should believe. By the end I understood him more than I wanted to, and that's what stayed with me.