SOLVED. Science fiction mystery involving a device that lets people store time for later use [s]

[[deleted user]]

I read the book sometime in the late seventies or early-to-mid-eighties, most likely early eighties. It was an adult book.

The plot involved a private investigator or cop (PI, I think) looking into the murder of a wealthy person. There were devices for storing up personal time, and using it later, somehow, and I believe that figured heavily into the mystery. The book was set on Earth, in New York City (I think) in a year that was a palindrome (read the same backwards and forwards), and I believe it was either 1991 or 2002. I'm pretty sure that it wasn't as far forward as 2112.

It was pretty grim, perhaps even dystopian-- it seems that there was widespread depression and/or apathy.

Hope someone knows the book I'm talking about, this is making me nuts.

[Andy]

This makes me think of "ARM" by Larry Niven (part of "The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton") The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton

[[deleted user]]

No, that's not it. Thanks, though.

[Andy]

Wordsmith wrote: "No, that's not it. Thanks, though."

Ok. I'll keep thinking about it. How did the devices for storing time work?

[[deleted user]]

I don't remember exactly, but I believe that you pressed it to a point on your body (back of the neck, maybe?), activated it, and it "stored time," basically causing the person to "lose" however long, but be able to add it back in later, when you were in need of more.

[Andy]

Would it happen to be this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_w... Where Were You Last Pluterday?

[[deleted user]]

No, but the idea was similar. Only the rich could afford the device, but there was *definitely* a device involved, it was key in the solution of the mystery.

It was very dark and depressing in tone, and definitely set in the US, in NYC, I believe.

[Tanya]

The plot description you give is very similar to the 2011 movie "In Time" (starring Justin Timberlake). I did a search online to see if there are any people discussing whether the movie was inspired by a book or story, and this forum discussion came up http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questi....

[[deleted user]]

Tanya wrote: "The plot description you give is very similar to the 2011 movie "In Time" (starring Justin Timberlake). I did a search online to see if there are any people discussing whether the movie was inspire..."

Similar, but that's not it. This was a novel, and the IMDb pages credits the script as being based on a story by Lee Falk (the creator of "the Phantom" and "Mandrake the Magician" comic strips), and he never wrote any novels.

Thanks for trying.

[Banjomike]

Keeping Time by David Bear

I found this review here on Goodreads but it doesn't always display correctly so I copied it here:
"Billed as science fiction, this is really a rather ordinary hard-boiled-narrator detective story which happens to be set in 1999 (after the 1980s gas wars and the 1990s Apathy Era)but though Bear dips only slightly into sf technology he does work hard and sometimes to good effect at providing a dank depressingly detailed vision of 1999 Manhattan. Shamus Jack Hughes ex-lawyer and gloomy widower is hired to find out who stole five time-storage cassettes from a new experimental "time deposit bank" (posh clients can put away bits of their own time and draw on it later). So Hughes starts questioning the five whose tapes have been stolen a great old actor a top woman writer a magnate a senator a famous widow and then these folks start dying apparently killed by the mechanism used to trigger the time-trading plate in their brains. For those who enjoy future-nightmares Bear is always ready to slow down the sleuthing and observe the grim social scenery: rampant suicide all-synthetic food (a real apple's $20 a bite) topless fashions slum conditions on Madison and Park no more California (fell off into the sea) etc. An odd fairly stylish cross-breed of mystery and sci-fi."

[Kris]

Keeping Time by David Bear for Banjomike's suggestion.

[[deleted user]]

Banjomike wrote: "Keeping Time by David Bear

I found this review here on Goodreads but it doesn't always display correctly so I copied it here:
"Billed as science fiction, this is really a rather ordinary hard-boil..."

That's it! Thanks to you and Kris, now I know what to look for.

I thank you, what little remains of my sanity thanks you, and I hope I can return the favor someday.