Review with Spoilers for Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 had multiple mysteries:

• What happened to Chloe Miranda, who went missing on another game of hide and seek?
• Where is Miller, Adele’s husband?
• Who killed Alex?
• Who is blackmailing Mav?
• Who is warning Adele to quit the game?

While I really enjoyed all these open questions, I can’t say I was thrilled at the answers. And I felt that all the questions were answered in a jumble at the end.

Let’s go over the major events in the book:

• Three contestants (Adele, Cody and Malinka) arrive to learn that there’s a huge tropical storm approaching.
• Blake tells Violet he thinks Chloe’s disappearance was a stunt. And that Maverick and Chloe might have been hooking up before she disappeared. He’s right.
• Mav’s company is not only in financial trouble, he’s been accused of cheating by favoring certain players.
• Malinka joined the competition to confront Mav about her missing girlfriend Chloe. She knew Chloe had hooked up with Mav. But Angeline won the competition and Mav picked her. Chloe joined the haunted hide and seek to get Mav back.

• Tavo and Angeline go looking for Alex, who’s also gone missing. Angeline and Tav are also seem to be cheating with each other. They find Alex’s room, but he’s missing and there’s blood. They also find evidence that there’s money missing at the company, and that Mav was exploring selling it.
• Mav, Tavo and Angeline find Alex’s body. Mav doesn’t want to call the police. Someone has been threatening him and, he thinks, trying to kill him.
• Against Tavo’s objections, Mav and Angeline throw Alex’s body over a wall. Someone is recording the entire thing.

• Violet is tracking her brother Blake on her phone. When she sees him leave school, she and her friend decide to follow him. Agent Coben follows them.

• Back on the island, the police come and suggest that the contestants be evacuated due to the storm. Also, Alex’s wife reported him missing. The three contestants all want to stay.
• Malinka announces that the Extreme staff have been told not to leave the island until Alex is found. She questions Mav about his hookups with Chloe.
• Hector says that someone has tampered with the cameras

• Violet follows Blake, who has asked his friend Gregg to drop him in the woods.

• A podcast interviews Peter, Chloe’s brother.
• Harley tells him there was an escape tunnel out of the house where Chloe was playing.

• Mav recalls his last encounter with Chloe, who accused him of physically abusing her and then sent him photos of her injuries.

• Tavo and someone else knock out Angeline. Mav is alarmed when he loses both Tav and Angeline’s tracking.
• Mav gets a call from Angeline’s kidnapper. That person, dressed as a rag doll, tells Mav that they have a recording of the dumping of Alex’s body.
• Mav and Hector are now players in their own game as the rag doll is streaming everything live.

The Ending of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 Explained

• On the podcast, Chloe’s friend thinks she staged her disappearance to get back at Mav. Is she rag doll?

• Angeline recalls Mav leaving mysterious duffles in his Range Rover. What was in them? Drugs? Money? 

• Coral and Violet follow Blake to a house. Violet thinks the house seems familiar and realizes it’s the house where they lived before her father disappeared.
• Blake answers the door and he’s there. With their father, Miller.

• Mav goes down an elevator shaft to look for Angeline. He recalls telling Alex that the missing money is going to a blackmailer.

• Violet and Blake are shocked to see their dad. He says he feels responsible for the fact that Adele entered the competition. Blake calls the island’s police, who tell him that due to the storm, they can’t check on her.
• Blake remembers that he has an online gaming friend who lives at the island. How convenient!

• Cody and Adele save Malinka from a fall. The three of them discuss how to get off the island.
• Cody tells them about Angeline being kidnapped and they discuss whether it’s true or not.

• Mav finally reaches Angeline and tries to negotiate with the kidnapper. Not surprisingly it is Chloe, who’s working with Hector and Tavo. They accuse him of stealing $2 million. They’re mad that he wasn’t going to tell them about his plans to sell the company.

• Cody, Adele and Malinka also arrive. The building collapses.
• Angeline and Mav are trapped but…
• Blake’s friend Hugo magically shows up to help.
• Malinka insists on going back for Chloe.
• The soldiers from the town rescue Mav and Angeline.
• Hugo again comes to the rescue and they all make it out through the secret tunnels.

What Happens to the Characters? The Epilogue Explained

Adele appears on the podcast and gives us a rundown of what happened.

• Miller turns himself in and will do jail time.
• Tavo did not make it out of the building.
• Chloe and Hector masterminded the kidnapping scheme as a way to reveal Mav’s fraud and corruption.
• Chloe staged her own disappearance and could be charged with blackmail and falsifying a crime
• Hector was the one who killed Alex
• Adele admits to her kids that Miller left her money in a safe at their old house, and that (I think) she didn’t sell the house because she thought he’d come back.
• Mav and Angeline escape to Canada with the duffel bags of money, but are caught in the end. 

Things I Found Unsatisfying: What Do You Think?

I thought Adele and her kids were great and that the set-up of this book was pretty clever but that maybe there were too many loose ends to tie up. The ending felt rushed and confusing to me.

Also:

• There was no actual hide and seek
• There were only three contestants? For a million dollars?
• I was hoping that Miller was somehow connected to the events on the island, or I at least thought Miller must be Killer King, Blake’s gaming friend
• It was very convenient that Blake had a friend on this remote island to swoop in and save everyone
• I was confused as to why Adele didn’t just sell the old house if they needed money so much. In case her husband came back? After five years? She thought he couldn’t find them?