Thank you to NetGalley for this e-ARC!

This book was so much fun, and had me guessing at every turn. It reminded me a lot of my obsession with Nancy Drew as a kid, and because of that and how much I enjoyed this one, I am crossing my fingers there will be a sequel!

4.5, rounded up. I've been reading some excellent debuts the past few months, and I'm pleased to say this one continues the trend. The book follows Claudia Lin, a sardonic bibliophile who works at a tech company slash detective agency slash matchmaking company called Veracity that promises their clients that they'll find out whether their matches are telling the truth about themselves. (After all, everyone lies on the internet...right?) When client Iris is declared dead under suspicious circumstances and the REAL Iris shows up at Veracity, Claudia decides to investigate further to figure out who "Iris" really is. The result is a well-paced mystery plot, but also an in-depth analysis about the insidious nature of data collection. (We do put a scary amount out into the world, folks.)

As much as I enjoyed Claudia's detective work (delightfully, based on the main character of her comfort mystery series, Inspector Yuan), I also appreciated how Pek explored Claudia's relationship with her friends and family; it's a nuanced depiction of the Chinese diaspora, family dynamics, and the neuroses and idiosyncrasies and insecurities that plague all of us. Pek is also a skilled writer; the chapters flow well and feel substantial, but there are also many one-liners that I had to highlight in my Kindle to remember and chuckle about later.

This review will go live on The Wellesley News on January 12.

I went through a phase in elementary school where all I’d ever read was a series called “The Boxcar Children.” It’s a very old chapter book mystery series starring four siblings investigating strange things that happened in their town, and I devoured those books eagerly.

So what better book for me to read now than “The Verifiers,” Jane Pek’s debut novel about a queer Chinese American woman in STEM trying to solve the mystery of a client’s suspicious death?

Claudia Lin is an employee at Veracity, a detective-agency-slash-dating-app, investigating whether people’s matches are telling the truth about themselves. This job and her life in general defy all of her family’s wishes — her mother wants her to have a stable career and marry a nice Chinese boy, but not only does she work for a secret company, she’s also a lesbian. 

But soon, Claudia has more than just her immigrant mother’s expectations to deal with. A Veracity client is found dead, and Claudia suspects foul play. As she starts to investigate, she finds more and more incriminating evidence, not just about the murder but also about the many dating apps Veracity competes with. 

This is, as you may be able to tell, a lot. I went into this story expecting a fun little mystery, something like “Arsenic and Adobo,” but instead, I was launched into the realities of dating app hell, with a side of Chinese family expectations. 

Pek calls into question the culture of dating apps and how far they can go to keep their users, crafting a world in which dozens of highly similar online dating services compete with each other. What is the meaning of romantic love when it’s been distilled by corporations?

And as for the family part — Claudia’s family is quite imperfect. She and her siblings vie for their single mother’s attention, jealousy stirring between all of them, but at the end of the day, they love each other. This B-plot of “The Verifiers” was actually the part I was most drawn to. What can I say? I’m a sucker for stories about the Chinese diaspora. 

Claudia is also a very flawed detective, which is actually much more realistic than most mystery novels tend to be. She makes many mistakes, does not understand the law whatsoever and relies mostly on her knowledge of a mystery novel series called “Inspector Yuan” in order to figure out the situation. This may leave some readers frustrated, but I was perfectly okay with it because it made Claudia seem more real to me.

I also have to commend Pek’s writing style. The prose is at once very literary and extremely funny; I have countless one-liners highlighted in my ebook copy. This is the kind of writing I’d expect from someone like Pek, who is a lawyer by day, and I absolutely love it. 

And a refreshing aspect of this book I didn’t expect: Claudia does not have a love interest. She’s very confident in her sexuality (or, at least, her lack of attraction to men), but the story isn’t weighed down by an unnecessary romantic subplot. Frankly, there’s too much going on for her to be dating, despite or perhaps because of the fact that she literally works for a dating app. That being said, this story does set up for a sequel, and it does seem that she may have an inkling of a crush on someone at the end, so I’m very excited to see where it goes.

“The Verifiers” comes out on Feb. 22, 2022. I received an advanced copy from the publisher, Vintage, in exchange for an honest review.

This is an excellent debut! The Verifiers looks at romance in our digital world through Claudia, the newest employee at a boutique agency that helps questioning dating app users to find out if their online love match is being truthful. A mystery that also takes a hard look at truth and connection and algorithms, this is both entertaining and thoughtful. Readers get to see a lot of New York as Claudia spends much of her time as a bike commuter. Claudia is Chinese-American, and the subplots involving her mother and older brother and sister that look at family and culture and immigration add a great deal to the story.

I really wanted to like this one so much - like give it a nice warm hug for being so inclusive and accurate but y’all I think this one was above my pay grade.

claudia, an asian american wannabe detective, is exactly where she wants to be. she loves her new job at veracity, an online dating verification company to make sure your online match is who they say they are, and she accidentally on purpose found herself in the middle of a murder mystery. channeling her inner detective, she immediately sets to work, only to realize that the conspiracies are way bigger than she anticipated.

I loved the concept of this one!! claudia is a wonderful character that we don’t see a lot of - a lesbian asian american introvert geek, and the side characters were just as much of a wild ride as claudia was. some of my favorite parts were learning about claudia’s family.

however, the tech end of the story was way lost on me. the author did a great job of trying to explain everything (and I mean everything) in detail, but the terms were a bit confusing. I felt the whole online dating profile behind the scenes bit could have been trimmed down to focus more on the mystery.

I would highly recommend this to anyone working in the tech or data or engineer industries, because they probably already recognize all of these terms lol, but definitely be prepared to read this one with your thinking caps on.

rating: 2.5 stars
wine pairing: finger lakes cabernet franc

Very unique premise and fairly interesting characters. There were portions that could have been cut down a bit and I wished the characters were a lot more fleshed out, but a fun read. Definitely enjoyable and loved the representation.

I really wanted this to be a Lisa lutz spellman read alike but I found myself not be able to get into the characters. Her boss was a little to real for me with the passive agressive hatefullness that had me cringing.

Kind of a slow burn, but the premise was unique and intriguing. I did feel like the main character could have been better fleshed out. It's great to see a diverse addition to the genre though.

I'm not the biggest reader of adult mysteries/thrillers, but when I saw this featured a queer BIPOC character I took the plunge. The ending was a bit confusing for me and the middle dragged a bit more than I'd have liked, but it was still an interesting read that I overall enjoyed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Classic mystery trappings with an unusual premise. Can't wait to read more from this author.

Pek weaves several threads together beautifully in this novel. Not only is it a mystery, it’s a near-future philosophical conundrum, and a meditation on toxic family dynamics. Each facet was carefully constructed and added to the rich reading experience. She sets herself up nicely for a sequel and I can’t wait to read it.

The Verifiers is a strange story about online dating and crazy families.

Claudia is the youngest of three siblings. Her mother, suffering from some mental health issues, left her two older children with grandparents, just taking Claudia (a baby at the time) with her and her husband when they moved to the United States. Several years later, her older siblings, Charles and Coraline, joined them after their grandparents passed away. Ever since, they have thought Claudia was the favorite child (although their mother is just as disparaging to Claudia as she is to her other children). One of the few things she feels she has in common with her mother is a love of the Inspector Yuan mysteries, and she references Inspector Yuan frequently as she works at her new job.

Claudia works for Veracity, a company that verifies online dating profiles for people who want to know if the person they're dating is being honest. No one in her family knows she works for Veracity, partially because Charles helped her get her first job and might be disappointed to know she left, and partially because Veracity insists on total anonymity. They don't want anyone to know about what they do. A new client comes to the office and asks Veracity to verify two profiles. But when she dies of an apparent suicide, they find out she was impersonating her sister and was writing an article about some of the new players in the matchmaking industry. Claudia wants to solve the mystery of who killed her, but her bosses at Veracity want her to drop it and move on.

This wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't my favorite. It was quirky, which I usually love, but these characters didn't really resonate with me. It was interesting to think about the need for a company like Veracity in this day and age, as dating sites are rife with people lying about themselves, as well as bots manipulating what we believe about ourselves and the world.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy!

I enjoyed the author’s voice and her intriguing, quirky characters. The story has a mystery at its core and I enjoyed learning about the dating matching industry. The beginning of the book grabbed me as did the last half and I appreciated the satisfying ending. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

overall:
the verifiers is a interesting novel with a interesting premise. i found it good in several aspects, including the characterization of the main character, claudia, and her family, but i felt it dragged along around the end and i really found it confusing during the end.

plot:
the plot follows claudia pek, a chinese-american lesbian as she joins veracity, a online dating detective agency(basically if ur date is creepy/weird/not what they seem, they’ll investigate), in a society where there are a LOT of dating apps. i thought this was a cool premise and it was, but i also felt that it could’ve done with more structuring. also WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DATING APPS i was confused as fuck by the end.

writing:
writing was good, there wasn’t too much to note about it. i found it easy to read.

characters:
i really like claudia’s character and how she interacts with her family. i am also chinese-american and lesbian, and i really empathized with her. girlie we have shared experiences!

final thoughts:
i enjoyed reading this book, even if i did get confused at times. the mystery was grounded, the mc was enjoyable to read, and the book overall wasn’t bad! i’m pretty sure there’s gonna be an sequel, so i may pick it up when the sequel comes back.

I haven't thought this long and hard about matching and romance since I read Aziz Ansari's modern love. A neat murder made to look like suicide wrapped in a meditation on what goes into finding a perfect partner, and what can drive one away. The other strong an appropriate theme is how much privacy people have abdicated unknowingly, or at least apathetically, and how easy it is for corporations and corporation-adjacent actors to mine that data to shape behavior. The New York setting and descriptions of loose friend groups and immigrant family obligations also add to the rich texture. With the private eye point of view, there were tones of Sue Grafton, but I also found myself thinking of Zen Cho's Black Water Sister.

i don’t know how to explain my experience reading this book without an extraordinary amount of thirsty comments directed at becks

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc. This is a smart mystery perfect for the IT nerds, especially those who use dating apps. I loved the diversity in this novel and enjoyed biking through NYC as our protagonist works at her job at a dating app.

Jane Pek's novel The Verifiers is a decent read. Although it took me some time to get into, the prose is well written and the characters are interesting. The book was enjoyable and cozy.

Writing: 3.5/5 Characters: 3.5/5 Plot: 3/5

Claudia Lin is the tiny, stereotype-busting, Asian, lesbian, bicyclist hero of this tongue-in-cheek, semi-snarky, story of an amateur detective gone wild. Having landed a job at a dating detective agency, she ignores protocol and starts investigating the mysterious disappearance of an unusual client. And so it goes…

The mystery lives within an interesting premise — online matchmaking systems using AI based bots which move from verifying dating profile claims to nudging clients to becoming one with their claims. Claudia (and obviously the author) is an inveterate reader, and I enjoyed her literary asides and the source of Claudia’s detective know-how — the (fictional) mystery series starring the philosophical Inspector Yuan. Some interesting, novel likes explorations of the life and background of Claudia and her family that dips freely into a somewhat standard immigrant parent backstory. It’s a bit of a genre mishmash that started as a lot of fun with well-drawn characters but ultimately took too long to get to an abrupt and unsatisfying end.

Fun cozy mystery! I love the snarky narrator and the descriptions of millennial life in hipster Brooklyn. A little too “meta” for my tastes, but enjoyed the literary inside jokes as well. Interesting thoughtful take on surveillance tech as well. The ending was a little bit contrived, and I wish it loved a bit faster and had more high conflict - but I would definitely read the next in series.