Search - Marooned in Realtime

Note: "Marooned" is a sequel to "The Peace War" but I have not read the latter and didn't even a little lost. I will go back and read it now.

Vinge is a master of the genre - a genius of hard sci-fi. "Marooned" is a murder mystery set in a post-singularity Earth. The remnants of humanity skip forward through time years at a time, "bobbling" themselves in impenetrable force fields that stop time within their boundaries. Being left outside one of these force fields without medical care or any technology is a death sentence. And that's what happens to one of the characters. Our protagonist, a detective in a former life, is left to find the thief, who had decades to cover his or her tracks.