Flashback

What if you could relive the best days of your life? That's the premise of Flashback by Dan Simmons. Former Denver police detective Nick Bottom lives in a broken America. Set about twenty years in the future, America has only 44 states. Money is almost worthless and the government holds only limited powers. Sports stadiums are used as prisons. After Nick's wife died in a car accident he became addicted to "flashback" and lost his job. His teenage son Val lives in Los Angeles with his grandfather. Nick lives in 1/6 of a former Baby Gap store in what used to be Denver's Cherry Creek mall.

There are still obscenely wealthy people left in the world, however.  Hiroshi Nakamura is one of the nine regional advisors of the United States. He hires Nick to find out who killed his son, Keigo, six years before. Nakamura will pay Nick enough money to keep him in flashback for the rest of Nick's life. Between flashback trips and hunting down a killer, will Nick be able to locate Keigo Nakamura's killer? Will he see his son Val again and find out what really happened to his wife Dara?