Dare to Know

A Novel

By: James Kennedy

Narrated by: Bradford Hastings

Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's summary

Dark Matter meets Annihilation in this mind-bending and emotional speculative thriller set in a world where the exact moment of your death can be predicted - for a price.

Our narrator is the most talented salesperson at Dare to Know, an enigmatic company that has developed the technology to predict anyone’s death down to the second. Divorced, estranged from his sons, and broke, he is driven to violate the cardinal rule of the business by forecasting his own death day. The problem: His prediction says he died 23 minutes ago.

The only person who can confirm its accuracy is Julia, the woman he loved and lost during his rise up the ranks of Dare to Know. As he travels across the country to see her, he is forced to confront his past, the choices he has made, and the terrifying truth about the company he works for.

Wildly ambitious and highly immersive, this mind-bending thriller explores the destructive power of knowledge and collapses the boundaries between reality, myth, and conspiracy as it races toward its stunning conclusion.

©2021 James Kennedy (P)2021 Blackstone Publishing

Critic reviews

Indie Next List

Bradford Hastings is the perfect voice

“Dare To Know” is a fun sci-fi thriller that has a narrator who I found similar to “Up in the Air” Ryan Bingham. It is silly and quirky. This is a goofy story about a businessman who represents the company, Dare To Know. This company has an algorithm that can accurately pinpoint the moment of your death…to the very second.

We get to know the narrator as he reflects upon his life. He’s a science nerd, majoring in Physics and Philosophy. As a boy, he went to physics camp where he and his BFF, Renard, enjoyed many hijinks. Although Renard was not a main character in the narrator’s life, he became a significant character. Renard’s friendship significantly affects the narrator’s perceptions through life.

The story gets very interesting when the narrator has a snowy car wreck. As he’s waiting for the tow truck, he decides to calculate his own death. Oddly, his calculations show that he died twenty-three minutes ago. Shocked, he determines to find his old girlfriend who calculated his death date as well decades ago. In his journey to find her, he reminisces on his relationship with her and other relationships he’s had.

This is a fun premise. Who would want to know the exact time of their death? Certainly, insurance companies would, but the cost is prohibitive. In fact, our narrator finds many ethical issues on demanding payment for information that can be absolutely horrible (think mother finding out her baby will die of cancer in 2 years).

I listened to the audio, performed by Bradford Hastings. I LOVE his voice for this. He has the right amount of sarcasm that makes this a fun listen. I’m not sure if I’d enjoy it as much if I read it. Hastings’s performance definitely made this a romp of a listen.

Strong Start… Surreal Finish

Loved the first few hours. Slowly, the story became less and less cohesive and more and more surrealist. It ended up feeling like a lot of the details of the story were irrelevant in the end. Narrator did a pretty great job. I feel like the “voices” he used for the different characters didn’t always land. Would have been perfect if it had been a straight narration without the voice modulation.

Ends a book like Steven King... Not a Compliment.

In fifteen words or less... The last three chapters of the book were nonsense.

Good narrator, reminds me of Ray Porter.

A great premise without a coherent ending

I loved the idea of the book. I really liked it until the last 1/3. Then I have no idea what happened. The story falls apart and becomes a trippy fantasy that is cacophonous and unintelligible. Narrator is the only saving grace of this story.