If you love detective novels, then you'll enjoy the online dating mystery of The Verifiers by Jane Pek. Claudia works for Veracity, a company that helps online daters verify if the person they've met online is really who they say they are. When one of Veracity's clients winds up dead, Claudia takes it upon herself (much like her favorite fictional detective Inspector Yuan) to find out what really happened.

The book focuses a lot on dual identities, whether that's through a man claiming to be single in his online dating profile but really being a married father or through Claudia trying to navigate being a good Chinese daughter while also staying true to herself. Pek also has a lot to say about the way internet companies use our data, envisioning a world where we are unknowingly influenced to like or do certain things, and we blindly follow. (Not that far off from the way the world currently is, right?) In Pek's world, dating sites and apps are the ones doing the influencing.

This was such a unique story, and I really enjoyed following Claudia around on her stakeouts and interviews. This would make for a great book club discussion, especially for those of us who have used dating sites before!

The Verifiers is published by Vintage and will be available to purchase on February 22, 2022 (tomorrow!). I received a free e-ARC in exchange for this review.

Okay but how great was this sapphic dating app murder mystery?! I need the sequel ASAP. Also what is the ClawBecks official ship name because I am captain rn

Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency.

“I remind him of the universally acknowledged truth that a single person in possession of a superlative dating profile must not be lying about anything.” Jane Pek, The Verifiers.

Claudia Lin is a twenty-something Chinese-American girl. Her mother wants her to find a nice Chinese boy and a good job, but that’s not what Claudia wants. She’s lesbian and she secretly started working at Veracity, an online-dating detective agency that investigates dating profiles to verify if the things they say are true. As a lifelong mystery reader, Claudia is thrilled with her new job.

One day, a client dies under suspicious circumstances and even though the police say it was a suicide, Claudia starts finding some inconsistencies so, following the example of her literary detective heroes, she decides to study the case and solve the mystery.

I’m usually annoyed by characters who take justice in their own hands and end up making everything worse, but Claudia is different. She’s smart, quirky and she handles every situation as if she were a character in a detective novel.

But this is not only a mystery novel. It also explores the dynamics of a dysfunctional family that had to emigrate from China; a single mother who had to work hard for her children and three siblings who both love and envy each other.

This was definitely a page-turner that kept me intrigued throughout the whole story. I really enjoyed the allusions to Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie and many other famous literary novels. I hope this is the beginning of a series and that we get to see more of Claudia in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday for the digital review copy of The Verifiers in exchange for an honest review.

This book was pretty fun! I love a mystery mixed up with romance, especially when there's queerness and questions of race and gender and power in it! Was this super high quality or innovative fiction? It was not! But it was quick and enjoyable and interesting!

I've never done the online dating thing, but my friends that have confirm that people are not completely honest in their biographies or messages. I know, shocker. And I've seen enough algorhythms (Amazon, Netflix, etc.) to know that they don't always get things right. Makes sense, though, because we're all unique and simply because I share two or three likes with someone doesn't mean that I'll share more than that. Anyway... there is a company, Veracity, that can be discretely hired to check someone's profile: was he really on vacation with college friends, or is there another woman? did she really attend that prestigious university when she says, or has she lowered her age a little (or a lot)? Claudia works for them, tracking and investigating targets. And then a client dies.

The amateur mystery part was far less interesting than the questions around algorithmic accuracy and what people do (or don't) say about their lives. What if Veracity were a real company? What if other companies started to use their methods to check that I really meant to stream that movie, or if someone was using my password? Or more? Too much time spent on the mystery meant lower stars from me. YMMV.

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

I had high hopes when I started reading this - excited to have a Chinese American protagonist for a mystery series. Unfortunately while the writing was okay the story itself dragged and was no particularly compelling at all.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and hope Jane Pek has a long and prolific career ahead of her. Claudia Lin, a quirky, intentionally underachieving woman is hired by a somewhat mysterious company to help online daters investigate their potential partners. Things go awry when a client ends up dead of an apparent suicide, and Claudia can't let go of the idea that something is amiss. With frequent references to the fictional Inspector Yuan, Claudia's favorite literary sleuth, a cast of slightly outrageous yet believable characters, and a thoroughly likable and slightly flawed heroine, the story unfolds as a modern high tech twist on the classic whodunit. A touch of romance makes me hope we haven't seen the end of Claudia.

Claudia Lin is the youngest child in a Chinese-American family who lives in NYC. The story is really a combination of a murder mystery and a coming-of-age, family novel. Claudia becomes a "verifier" working for a company known as Veracity, which is a very private company that uses technology to allow those who use dating websites to investigate people they have met through these sites. Claudia sees this job very much as an opportunity to practice what her favorite novel detective performs in the books she loves. Interestingly enough, she actually does get to act in a detective when one of the Veracity clients does not arrive for a scheduled appointment and is later found dead. As Claudia investigates, we also learn more about her life inside and outside her family.
I really, really thought I would love this book. Although I usually love books with intriguing vocabular and lots of character development, I found myself getting irritated at having to look up so many words (I have a doctorate degree, so I'm no dummy) and learning what seemed like SOOOO much about every single character, even the minor mentions. It was an interesting read, but something just was lacking in it for me.
Thank you Vintage and NetGalley for the eARC of this book.

Start with a premise that an English major gets hired by an online dating service that verifies for clients that the matches are telling the truth during their interactions because of the main character’s ability on an online murder mystery game. Throw in sibling and family dynamics, plus Claudia’s reliance on one of her favorite Chinese mystery series, and you have a fun romp through an interesting moral dilemma (who tells the truth all of the time?)—oh, except for that one pesky unexplained death along the way. Amusing, touching and raises some very interesting questions about dating through the digital age.

A thank you to Netgalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What I liked: the snappy writing it's great and meant that the book moved at an much appreciated fast clip; the main character - she's fun and just plain likeable; the cultural component, the unique storyline, and the audio narration. What I didn't like so much: too much techie and the online dating thing. Different, yes, but neither is of much interest to me. Would've liked it more if it had been a straight mystery - maybe a little less focus on technology with the character an online P.I...Will read more by the author though for the writing alone.

Great characters and good story. Looking forward to more. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

This book was a pleasant surprise: quick-witted, tinged with wry humor at just the right times, limned with familial drama, and underpinned by the moral dilemmas surrounding consumer privacy rights, data mining, machine learning, AI, and algorithms and how they are increasingly playing a part in how humans around the world make their day-to-day choices and what all of that could mean for our futures.

For all its levity, this is a book that does take on some heavy moral and social issues, but it does so deftly, never letting the issue settle in long enough to bring the reader down. Pek lets it linger long enough on the page to make just a jab of impact before drawing us away from the inevitable ennui or melancholy that could easily settle in with overwrought discussion arising from such an overwhelming topic. It’s a masterful bit of storytelling: to parry and thrust with the heavy and the light so the reader can both absorb the implications of the narrative and have time to recover from it in order to enjoy the story as well.

Claudia is a terrific character, and her brief interactions with her family members only serve to highlight certain bits of the main plot, which is a great move on Pek’s part. It would’ve been easy to let the family distract us or to use their drama to create sympathy for Claudia. But Pek just uses their stories to subtly illuminate aspects of the story already occurring. It’s a nice narrative touch.

I didn’t think the book was perfect, but it was very enjoyable, and I highly recommend it.

Thanks go to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday, and Vintage Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review!

Not really into this one. However, I thought the story was an interesting idea.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for the eARC.

This was a DNF for me unfortunately. The writing style was too sparse and I couldn’t connect to the main character. I really like the idea behind this book but it just wasn’t for me! I got about 100 pages in and the plot was really dragging for me.

If only Claudia could have protected hearts from the Tinder Swindler. Clients looking for romance through dating apps hire Claudia to verifying that their matches aren’t lying. She eagerly follows the example of her literary detective heroes when one client goes missing, ignoring her company’s advice to drop the issue. At the same time, she’s hiding her new career from her high achieving family, including her mother who doesn’t understand why Claudia is uninterested in any of the nice boys she suggests. The dysfunctional sibling dynamics, Claudia’s realistic amateur detective antics, and the technology conspiracy combine for a nuanced mystery novel. Fingers crossed for a sequel!

Claudia Lin has always loved mystery novels and she’s great at keeping secrets — like hiding the fact that she’s a lesbian from her family. So when she’s offered a job at an online dating company that promises to investigate if clients’ potential partners are telling the truth, Claudia is certain she’s found her dream job. But then a client dies under mysterious circumstances. Claudia secretly looks into the death and finds her company may be hiding some dark secrets themselves.

This is 100% a book lover's mystery! Literature play a huge role, from finding clues to Claudia's obsession with mysteries. But beyond the mystery, THE VERIFIERS is also rich in complex characters, ethical questions about big tech, nuanced family relationships, and so much more. This is a wonderfully layered read that still has plenty of adventure and opportunities to guess whodunit!

This novel tells the story of Claudia, or as her siblings call her, "Claw," a young Chinese-American woman who gets a job working for a company with a unique mission. People who are doing online dating hire the company to investigate their dates, to see if they're telling the truth about themselves. But then one of the company's clients gets murdered, and Claudia feels compelled to catch the killer herself. In the process, she - and we - learn a lot about the online dating business. She's a fun main character and the novel is written with a lot of flair. I really enjoyed it.

Claudia Lin is a real life detective—well, sort of. She started a job working for Veracity, a referrals-only online dating investigating agency that verifies their clients’ online dates to see that they really are who they say they are. When one of Veracity’s clients disappears, she can’t help but try to solve a real mystery.

I loved this modern take on a locked room mystery with call backs to Agatha Christie and other classic mystery novels. Online dating also fascinates me since it’s something I never experienced. Although Claudia loves her job, she struggles with the pressure of her family’s expectations of working at a respectable job and finding a nice Chinese boyfriend. The story was felt modern yet classic. It’s a great commentary on how technology is used in today’s world, and also examines complex family relationships in a seamless way. I’m looking forward to more novels by Jane Pek!

Thanks @netgalley and @vintageanchorbooks for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Not completely smitten with this one but the premise was intriguing. I think the text went a little too into the weeds building out the conflicts presented by the matchmaking companies. But even with all that, the conflict/mystery wasn’t at all big enough to pull the story through for me. I enjoyed Claudia’s quirkiness and felt like her character stood out for me in the book. I liked how her brain works but could have done with less Inspector Yuan references. I loved the inclusion of the family dynamics and Claudia’s increased awareness of her family’s brokenness and love for each other — I think this part was very well-written and developed.