Time travelers with soul catcher

[TomMazanec]

Novel, early 21st Century.
Con artist, inspired by short story of a con artist who pretends to be a time traveler and gets caught by actual time travelers, tried the same con on a science fiction fan. They get involved with actual time travelers who are using a device to record the minds of everybody in the past to resurrect them. Fairly Big Name author IIRC.

 

[Hugh]

This sounds like some sort of prologue to Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld", but if it is, I've never heard of it.

 

[TomMazanec]

I'm pretty sure it was not a Farmer novel.