A novel set in two different timelines; main characters being Flynne and her brother Burton some unspecified time in our future where things are falling apart even further, and Netherton and Rainey 70 years into the future, after some kind of serious societal collapse that has resulted in a huge population drop and essentially only the very rich or very lucky surviving.

Flynne's brother and his friend Connor, former army vets, now run a company called Haptic Recon where they perform surveillance via drone and similar security tasks. They get a surveillance job they think is beta testing a game using similar drone surveillance systems, but when Flynne fills in for one of her brother's shifts, she witnesses (via drone) an event that turns out to be a real murder. This puts her and her brother in danger as well as in demand.

Things become more complicated when it turns out the murder happened in Netherton and Rainey's timeline, and that they have a way of communicating with Flynne and Burton in the past, and allowing them to interact in the future timeline via VR controlled "peripherals". They bring Flynne into a peripheral (essentially a humanoid android she controls remotely) in their future, wanting her to virtually attend a party in hopes she'll be able to identify the killer. Meanwhile, the killer's allies want to try and kill her and her family back in the past, before she can do this. As Netherton and Rainey manipulate the past to try and protect Flynne and her family, the race is on to try and identify the killer before it's too late.

It's an interesting premise, an interesting view of the way the future might turn out, and an interesting speculation about where technology may go. I found the first half of the book much stronger than the second however. As the plot progresses, Netherton et al's ability to manipulate the past seemed somewhat inexplicable - both in how, as well as why it's worth so much effort. The resolution of the final conflict seemed very deus ex machina, and did not feel satisfying to me. And where the value is in maintaining a cross-time business relationship never seemed satisfactorily explained to me either. Overall an interesting set up and some intriguing ideas, but it didn't feel to me as if the actual story was very internally consistent and I was often puzzled about why a character was doing any particular thing.