This book is an interesting commentary on dating apps and the roles they play in our lives. Claudia made a great protagonist and the characters around her were interesting and well fleshed out. If the author writes any more books in this series I’ll definitely check them out!

This started out slow but was a great mystery from about 30% on. I think this is a great one for people who wanted to be fans of Finlay Donovan is Killing It and Dial A for Aunties but had trouble suspending their disbelief.

The Verifiers is a casual low-key read that has new things to say about technology and AI that I hadn’t read before, especially pertaining to the online dating world. It’s great to have a queer Asian American protagonist who’s living a curious and exciting life. At times the writing feels a bit too beach-ready, with its glib dialogue and flippant narration, but that’s more a matter of personal taste, not necessarily a detriment of the novel. If the beginning of the novel is a little static, I found that the story picked up fast, ending with profound and disconcerting ideas on bots so advanced, they’re indiscernible from human users. Overall glad I picked this up and would like to read more from Jane Pek.

An interesting concept that involves internet dating sites, algorithms, and a company that verifies information of members.
Claudia Linn works for Veracity, a company that verifies profile information if a client finds something that doesn't ring true or that worries them. When a client ends up dead, Claudia gets involved.

There were several elements that evoked my interest about online dating profiles. I mean, we've become accustomed to the jokes about "I enjoy sunsets and walks on the beach" kind of thing. I was curious about the kinds of questions matchmaking sites actually asked to try for a match. Do these sites try to match only similar interests (if people are even honest in their interests)? Do they ever match "opposites," I wonder. What algorithms?

On a more serious level, how do companies go about checking for out-and-out dishonesty about professions, locations, financial situations, etc. in a client's profile? The match-making sites are part of our lives since the advent of the internet, but I have never really thought about them in a way that doesn't include the use of online-dating in a mystery novel or thriller.

Unfortunately, this book was not a match for me--the characters felt artificial, the promised humor was hit or miss, I didn't learn much about what I was curious about, and the plot itself didn't really engage me. Note: I'm in the minority about this according to GR reviews.

NetGalley/Knopf/Doubleday

LGBQT Mystery. February, 2022. Print length: 368 pages

As far as I can tell, THE VERIFIERS is about a sketchy situation revolving the matchmaking business that the main character Claudia Lin is investigating in and a client with her own secrets.

The blatant HP reference @22% did it. DNF. (I checked Google Books, too, so it seems like it’s not just an ARC issue?) I’m surprised no one on the publishing team caught it and everyone agreed it’s okay? (Note that this book was published in February 2022.)

I truly hate DNF’ing books, and I had high hopes for THE VERIFIERS since it’s both sapphic and Asian, something I always love seeing more of. It is especially disappointing that I had to DNF it (yes, I could theoretically push through, but no one will benefit from it).

There were some other reasons for DNF’ing as well. Usually I enjoy reading detailed descriptions, but it got a bit too much. It felt like every other sentence is a simile. And then there was this line that, in a sense, was also a bit too much: “One good thing about being a petite, soft-spoken Asian female is that nobody ever thinks you’ll do anything sketchy. I never get selected for randomized screening at the airport. I’m invisible to policemen and security guards.” I cannot speak for the Asian American experience, and I’m sure the author meant well, hoping to make a comment on racial profiling, but I’m truly not sure what to feel about this. (Also note that the quote may have changed upon publication.) This is mainly a reflection of the main character though, who I can totally see saying this.

THE VERIFIERS might be for someone else, but it didn’t excite me enough at 22% for me to take the risk and continue reading. I regret to say that this book and I will part ways here, and perhaps I’ll pick up the next book Pek writes.

This is my second DNF’d arc.

Claudia Lin is your average Chinese-American girl who enjoys mystery novels, riding her bike, and getting into other people's business. She works for a company called Veracity, a dating detective agency that basically verifies if a person on a matchmaking site is telling the truth. Yes, if someone is suspected of lying on their dating profile, it's Claudia's job to tail them and figure out the truth behind the matter. And yes, by using any match making site, you agree to the terms and conditions of being followed using your phone number. Not a big deal at all.

When one of Claudia's clients is found dead, she takes it upon herself to investigate the murder. Using her knowledge of Inspector Yuan (or basically Sherlock Holmes), she questions suspects, sneaks into apartments, and unravels the mystery to find out what really happened. Consequences be damned, she just wants to prove that her client was murdered. Is that all too much to ask for?

I felt that the characters were pretty well developed, even some of the secondary and tertiary characters that pop up in Claudia's story. However, one of the big issues that I had was that nearly every character was just not that interesting. I can also get behind the fact that this amateur sleuth is trying to investigate her way into the murder mystery, but some of the connections were a bit convoluted at points, mixing it up with matchmaking data analytics that, at the end of the day, sort of missed the mark in keeping me engaged. Her family relationships offered some drama, but felt separate from the overall crux of the story.

There's definitely a lot to love if the content sounds interesting to you.

Thanks to Netgalley for a free advanced copy of the book.

This book is so good! In The Verifiers, Claudia Lin recently got a job for a company that verifies if your online date is telling the truth about themselves. She ends up going rogue on a full scale investigation into murder and shady matchmaking tech. I liked this book because it’s not just a amateur detective murder mystery, but also gets into Claudia’s family story and identity. Pek’s characters and their relationships are very well written. And a queer Asian American protagonist?! I really hope this is the start of a series.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher.

I do love a good mystery and this one intrigued me with the premise of a dating verification business and a young woman that loves solving mysteries and tends to think of two Chinese detectives and what they might do to solve the case. But this book was more than a mystery of who killed one of their clients, it is also about family and Claudia working to find her true self and what she wants from life despite any pressures from her brother or mother.

The mystery is one that is not easily solved as Claudia discovers. She may think she can follow the clues, but it might put her in harm's way when everything is said and done. However, I admired her persistence realizing that something wasn't quite right when it came to the death of their client.

Beyond the crime, there is also family drama when it comes to Claudia's family. Her sister is very self-absorbed and thinks that her boyfriend is cheating on her, her brother is a workaholic, and she may be her mother's favorite, but that is not without a price when it comes to her siblings. I found the family dynamics interesting because everyone is flawed but it seems to work for them. I am glad that Claudia was finally able to tell her mother that she was not going to marry a nice Chinese boy and that she preferred women. Her mom's response was priceless, "two out of three." It was her way of accepting her preferences but still being a mom wanting only the best for her.

This was an interesting story but I felt that at times the pace slowed and it seemed to get off track. There wasn't any way to solve the mystery since there are no real clues to point us in the right direction. I did think that the dating verification business was intriguing and in today's world is something that is needed considering the number of strange people out there and you never know who you are going to meet.

We give it 3 1/2 paws.

For the most part I liked this story, but there were a couple things that fell flat for me. While I think the author had a very good understanding of the mystery genre, the actually mystery and resolution was very low stakes and anticlimactic. I was also a little disappointed to see a Harry Potter reference in a book that has an lgbtqia+ main character (major ick for me)

The plot of the story is what originally got me interested in this book. I was expecting it to be a commentary on online dating and the influence technology and social media has on our society. The thing that ultimately kept me reading was Claudia's broken family dynamics. With every page I became more attached to Claudia. I think that author did a wonderful job balancing who Claudia is in her everyday life and who she tries to mold herself into when around her family. I would have liked more of a resolution between her and her siblings as it seemed to be forgotten for the sake of concluding the mystery portion of the book. I also think it would have been really nice to see more of a romantic subplot for Claudia. It would have provided a lot of depth to the overall commentary of online dating and how deceiving it can be from the eyes of someone whose job it is to verify the authenticity of dating app users.

I think overall this was a fairly strong debut from the author. She has a way of gracefully giving her main character so many layers that you can't help but fall in love and grow attached to them.

This one was pretty slow to start for me. It did eventually pick up and overall it was pretty interesting. The mystery took several good turns, falling back in on itself, and while I saw some of it coming I definitely didn’t predict the ending.

I wish there had been more character development outside of the mystery, especially with some of the more secondary characters. I feel like we got bits and pieces of different stories but never the whole thing and I also feel like a lot of the stories were truncated and we didn’t get to see them end.

I’m somewhere between a 3.5-4/5.

Ever worried about online dating? Wondered whether the profiles reflect reality? With those questions in mind, Jane Pek tells a great story.

This was a delightful contemporary mystery with an appealing protagonist, a compelling main plot, and engaging and believable family dynamics underlying it. Pek executed the layers of this book really effectively, making each aspect rich and genuine, missing caricatures or underdeveloped tropes that a mystery like this could fall into if written with less finesse.

I'm always curious whether I'll be able to believe the characters' motivations when an author goes fairly deep into family dynamics and background, and in this case Pek did an expertful job of illuminating backstory and personality without reducing her characters to simplistic stereotypes. The actions of the main character made sense which I found important for the overall cohesiveness of the narrative.

I also appreciated the look at how technology infiltrates our lives and the ramifications or uses of technology beyond original intent. It's a topical premise handled without being overly preachy. It was thought-provoking and relevant, but the book could be just as enjoyable if you opted out of paying attention to those bits.

Pek teed this book up to become a series really nicely, tying up enough loose ends to be satisfying, but leaving parts of her characters unexplored in ways that make me excited to read a next volume (if there is one).

Usually dislike when book blurbs use the term 'genre-bending' but in this case it's apt, and for The Verifiers it's more like a genre jambalaya. Was happy to include it in my latest “Thrills and Chills” round-up for Zoomer magazine, highlighting winter’s best suspense and mystery reads. (see mini-review at link)

Claudia, a detective follows people online for a dating detective agency. Then a client goes missing. Family, mystery, and romance.

I didn’t love it. I almost quit reading many times, but I finished it. I’m underwhelmed. This seemed like it would be up my ally, I love mysteries- especially when they aren’t gory, but this one was frustrating.

I didn’t like a single character.

A fast pace mystery of fraud and disappearance/murder via AI (Artificial intelligence) in dating apps. A Chinese American investigates the fraud and disappearance that questions when influencing crossing the line over to manipulation and loss of privacy. A quick, enjoyable read.

Overall I enjoyed reading this book. There were many twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat, but also ensured I focused on the hook.

The Verifiers has some aspects of what a good cozy mystery should be - an actual mystery, solved by a non-professional but not by, say, a poodle or crazy cake icer. I really enjoyed the interactions between the characters - messy family interactions, relationships stress, etc. I want to know more! Will the brother stay with his girlfriend? Will the sister find a better relationship? Will the roommate find true love? I was less impressed with the mystery portion of the story. The technical aspects behind the algorhythms involved in matchmaking dating sites started to sound like either a Wikipedia article or a Dilbert cartoon techno-babble. This felt like an instance where less would have been more. I get that these explanations we were meant to help us understand the motivation behind the murder, but for me it just bogged the story down. The "must keep what this agency does" super secret aspect seemed odd and contrived as well. Why not just blatantly advertise that they verify dating profiles? I couldn't understand why our main character couldn't admit what her job was to her family or friends. It didn't seem like keeping the purpose of the agency secret had any purpose. I did enjoy the story overall despite some of its weaknesses and will read a sequel when it comes out.

I enjoyed getting to know the main character Claudia and her family. We get to explore the parent and sibling relationships and all the complexities involved. Of course there is work drama and a mystery to solve as well. I found that I looked forward to the literary references peppered throughout the novel!

**I received an electronic ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review of this book.

Claudia Lin secretly works for Veracity, a dating detective agency for those who use matchmaking sites. Claudia is the youngest of three siblings, and her brother and sister resent her for receiving the majority of her mother's attention. Her mom, meanwhile, just wishes Claudia would settle down with a nice Chinese boy (this may be difficult, since Claudia is gay). Claudia loves mysteries and books (she wrote her thesis on Jane Austen), so when a Veracity client goes missing, she starts to investigate. Before she knows it, Claudia is swept up in a web of lies and trouble.

"Sometimes I fear I may be out of joint with my time."

This is an interesting and complex novel, part mystery and part character driven family tale. I don't know if it will be for everyone, but I enjoyed it. At times, it offers a nearly textbook-like exploration of the matchmaking industry and data exploitation, going very in-depth into these topics. If you don't like your books to be on the cerebral side, it may feel like a bit much. But this is also a really enjoyable, witty, and sarcastic read with an awesome protagonist--a lesbian, Chinese character who loves mysteries and reading and is smart, spunky, and yet reserved. She made me laugh and I found myself totally rooting for her. My only complaint is that I wanted a bit more happening for Claudia in the romance department!

THE VERIFIERS is packed with New York descriptions, setting you right smack down in the middle of the city as Claudia rides her bike all about. We also watch her navigate her difficult family. This family thread is often a sad undercurrent, as I found them to be difficult to like at times. She makes frequent references to various mysteries, usually classics, and to her beloved Inspector Yuan, a favorite series she grew up with. There's also lots of nods toward literature, many of those classics as well. These meta nods will be a big hit with many readers.

The mystery here is a bit hard to follow at times, as it threads itself into the world of matchmaking and data analytics. But it's interesting and intriguing, and Claudia is a great character to follow. Overall, I enjoyed this detailed, diverse, and witty mystery.