Ok, so the premise of this one is very cool: A lesbian East Asian woman works for a dating agency that basically investigates dating app crimes (like ghosting lol) for a steep fee. It's a bit more complicated than that, but think, like, dating app investigations. And then, one of the clients "commits suicide" and our main character, Claudia gets suspicious and decides to investigate, uncovering a whole new world of corruption.

This was fun! The characters are definitely the best part, Claudia is quite relatable and likable, even though she makes some...errrr...interesting decisions, and her friends and family (aside from her mom, who gave me anxiety through the pages) are well-drawn and fun to read without feeling like MPDF (that's manic pixie dream friends, folks, it's a thing I swear - have you read a new adult book lately?). The mystery was pretty easy to solve (I figured it out as soon as the murderer was introduced due to a clue that was actually never mentioned again, lol), but the trappings of the mystery, which is to say dating apps, data usage, and corrupt corporations, was fascinating and so fun to read. This definitely felt like it could be a series starter, and I for one would read another one!

TLDR: The Verifiers is murder mystery with a very creative premise that ultimately pays off, mostly due to strong characters. I'd recommend it to mystery lovers, or anyone who wants a fun new-adult mystery series featuring diverse protagonists and characters to add to their TBR.

Thanks to Vintage and Netgalley for the eARC which I received in exchange for an unbiased review. The Verifiers is out in February, but you can put your copy on hold now!

Thanks to Vintage & NetGalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Finally: a book about a "new" adult wherein the protagonist is not supremely annoying! Rejoice!

But seriously, Claudia is a relatable character with normal (but interesting) family dynamics, an entertaining interior narrative, and healthy curiosity. She is *way* less irritating than, say, Veronica Mars.

Claudia is the youngest in a Chinese family, and expectations are high, so when she has an opportunity to work for Veracity, a company that assists online dating clients with their matches, she doesn't let on to her family that she's quit the (stable-but-boring) job her brother got for her. But it turns out that Claudia is pretty good at her new job - she's innately curious and a good problem solver. It helps that she has read the entire Chinese Dynasty-themed cozy mystery book series that she can draw on for inspiration in her new work ;)

The book starts off a bit innocent and then gets rather darker, delving into issues of ethics, privacy, and corporate control. It was an easy read, even if the plot does get to be a bit difficult to believe towards the end. It's still very enjoyable, and Jane Pek is definitely a writer to watch. An auspicious debut.

Near-future or slightly alternate reality. The mystery plot shared the spotlight, for me, with the technological and privacy issues. Mystery readers will enjoy the main character's love of mysteries and how she peppers her narration with what her favorite character would do, how the situation is similar to the plot of a certain novel, and what would likely happen next if the situation were in a book.

The main character's Chinese-American background and queer identity give her depth. She interacts with her family and with love interests, but these are a small part of her and not the focus of the story-- just who she is as a person. How refreshing!

This isn't a cozy, but isn't exactly fast-paced, either. This fits the category, for me, or beach read or airplane read-- easy to follow but with high enough stakes to keep the reader engaged. Maybe like, gentle suspense? Technically a locked-room mystery, too!

I loved The Verifiers. Claudia has a lifelong love of detective novels, and is excited to begin working at a "dating detective agency" - a company that investigates whether online daters are lying. But when a client goes missing Claudia decides to solve the mystery herself. I loved Claudia - she is smart and funny, with a complicated relationship with her mom and her siblings, who have long resented her status as favorite (and who both have interesting character arcs). The mystery was compelling as Claudia delves into the secrets of online matchmaking companies. I also loved how Claudia often brings up the plots and methods of her beloved Inspector Yuan novels to figure out how to solve the mystery. I'm hoping (and assuming, based on the ending) that this is going to be a series. Highly recommended!

Jane Pek's The Verifiers is an absolute gift for readers of contemporary mysteries who like varied, interesting characters and complex plots. Claudia Lin, the "detective" in the novel is the youngest child in a single-parent Chinese-American family in New York City. She's the only one of the three Lin siblings who was born in the U.S. Her older brother and sister spent years living with their grandparents before traveling to the U.S. to rejoin their mother. Both of them are more "successful" than Claudia—her brother an ivy-league businessman; her sister a beauty who always has men willing to provide whatever she wants. Both resent the fact that Claudia was the child who was kept from the beginning.

No one in the family knows that Claudia has ditched the low-level corporate job her brother found for her and is instead working for Veracity: a very hush-hush firm that allows the wealthy to investigate people they meet on dating sites. What her siblings know, but her mother doesn't, is that Claudia is a lesbian. Her mother is still trying to fix Claudia up with "a nice Chinese boy."

Claudia's interest is piqued when Veracity takes on a client who doesn't quite fit the usual mold for those who employ them. She's investigating individuals she's met online, but these are individuals she's no longer in contact with. Why would she want to know more about a boring man who kept urging her to go to a particular showing of modern art but was never willing to meet up? Why would she want to know about the man she's already dumped because he's married? And then—why does this client disappear, missing an appointment, only to be found dead in her apartment, an apparent suicide, days later?

The Verifiers is a novel of machinations within machinations—within Verity itself, among the many online matchmaker businesses, within those who want to use social media to bring people together and those who want to use social media to enrich themselves, and within Claudia's own family. There are a number of candidates for the murderer (in a novel like this, of course a "suicide" will turn out to be murder), and Pek had me guessing until the last few chapters.

I'm hoping that The Verifiers is the start of a series: there are so many interesting directions in which Claudia—and the company employing her—might go. This title is coming out on February 22, 2022, and it's worth looking for the day it's released.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

I already know who I'm being for Halloween. Claudia Lin, a fearless, biker riding through NYC, badass girl detective who is a serious reader, using literary insights to crack the case. And the case Claudia is solving is a mystery that online daters everywhere would love to solve as well. Are the people we meet online really who or what they seem? This book is a perfect, of the moment critique of the dating industry with timely insights into bots, dishonesty, and choice architecture - which is the methods by which our choices are manipulated - and choice is an illusion most times, both in this book and in our reality.

Claudia's moves are classic detective techniques, making readers nostalgic for all the gumshoes we know and love, but the wit and perspective she brings in connection with the deeper questions of humanity. Our need to find a partner, to find acceptance, to feel needed, wanted, and loved. Family dynamics are explored, cultural stereotypes pondered, and social constructs deconstructed. - Jane Pek has created a detective story for the here and now with a heroine who is entirely relatable, but totally enviable. I think I love her.

Though this is a very well-done if somewhat convoluted mystery, the author also does an intriguing job of frying the larger fish of the imperfection and paradoxical nature of being human.

Claudia is seen as the drifter sibling of her Chinese American family. Though her professionally successful brother, Charles, has set her up with a job in finance, Claudia has left that and is now working for Veracity, an agency which verifies the reality of dating profiles for suspicious matches. Claudia joyfully sees her job as “being paid to investigate romantic mysteries like some latter-day love child of Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes.”

Iris Lettriste asks for not one, but two, matches to be verified and then is found dead two weeks later, apparently a suicide. Though Komla Atsina, owner of Veracity, is firm that the company is not a detective agency, Claudia decides to investigate what appears to her to be a suspicious death. Using the methodology of Inspector Yuan (an Asian Hercule Poirot), though occasionally feeling more like his hapless sidekick Constable Zhang, Claudia discovers that all is not what it seems.

The author has a knack for creating interesting and believable characters and Claudia herself is a peach: a witty, literary, and somewhat naive detective who leaves no stones unturned.

The plot does get a little more complicated than is credible but keeps chugging along nicely with unlikely twists and turns. Ms Pek weaves in some interesting thoughts about the ties that bind, and the mystery swirls around the idea of the lack of predictability of human motives.

All in all, I really enjoyed this novel and am pleased that the resolution sets us up for a sequel.

Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

Like me, Claudia Lin is a twenty-five-year-old recovering English major, but whereas I trotted off to become a librarian, Claudia stumbled into a secretive job as a dating profile fact-checker, where she essentially stakes out her target’s physical lives to see if they match their digital claims. Claudia is a small cog in a profession that’s snoopy, but not outright dangerous, until a missing client propels her into a mystery she finds herself unable to let go of.

I found Claudia to be a compelling, resilient narrator who asks important questions (what does it mean to consent to all the terms of data usage? What should our matchmaking tech aspire to?) while offering up clear-eyed and often hilarious assessments of other people. Her skewering characterizations are so so good.

I liked Claudia’s tongue in cheek references to her role in the novel - oh shoot, I’M the clueless character in the room establishing exposition through my stupid questions - and while I appreciated the discussion of what Jane Austen might have thought about online matchmaking, I don’t think every literary aside worked so well.

I had some trouble keeping the various corporate actors straight, but I appreciated the novel’s treatment of human nature - our idiosyncrasies and past hurts, and the deceptions we maintain. Excited to see what Claudia does next!

A young woman who works for a secretive matching site investigator and is obsessed with murder mysteries becomes embroiled in a murder mystery.

A modern day detective story the likes of Charlie Chan instead of Sherlock Holmes. Claudia is Chinese American and is not your average detective. She works for an online dating verification service. It is her job to make sure that Adam Smith who says he is single and has a dog in his social media posts actually isn't married with two kids. It is all fun and detective games until a client is missing and Claudia digs in her heels. I loved her personality and sharp wit and the fact that while she jokes about solving the case like a classic Chinese detective in the books she loves, she is anything but a stereotype. A clever debut. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

Love, love, love this intelligent, clever mystery with a protagonist that is creative, smart and funny. Claudia Lin has just started working at Verify, a tech company that’s goal is to keep the online matchmaking industry honest, when she stumbles upon an inconsistency that she just can’t let go. Her internal dialogues, especially with her favorite fictional detective, Inspector Yuan, are completely entertaining. As are the development of the secondary characters. This is so much more than just a mystery. Pek delves into the experiences of a second generation Chinese American immigrant, working to break out of the mold of the model minority, and at the same time trying to come to terms with the way in which her family dysfunctionally functions! Plus it's a cautionary tale about just how much information we are giving up when we sign up for different services and what people can do with that information.Can’t wait to see what is in store next for Claudia Lin.

The Verifiers is a fun ride from the very first page. A recommended purchase for most collections, particularly where mysteries are popular.

Fascinating literary mystery that also frightens and brings laughter. Claudia Lin works for an exclusive service that vets online dating profiles for clients. When a client dies, Claudia investigates. Claudia’s roommates and her large complicated family add significant full dimensional characters leading readers hoping for more.

What a unique novel! I enjoyed it and think it could be a good pick for book clubs. I appreciate the queer representation too.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek is a great psychological thriller! I hope Jane Pek writers more books, it is a wonderful debut effort. The story centers around Claudia, a 20-something gay Chinese-American woman in New York, who takes a job at a company that "verifies" the information supplied to people who are online dating. One client presents the company with a unique inquiry that intrigues Claudia, a life long mystery reader & Jane Austen fan. Is she making something from nothing, or has she stumbled upon a real-life complicated mystery and conspiracy? Part mystery, part family drama, this book has something for everyone. It will be high on my gift-giving list for 2022!

Jane Pek's The Verifiers is as sharp as it is smart. Trying to navigate life as a single millennial in New York City, Claudia finds herself working at a company where discretion is the name of the game. When a client suddenly dies in suspicious circumstances, it's a locked-room mystery that crime novel buff Claudia can't resist cracking open. Bolstered by strong sub-plots of self-discovery and family, this will appeal to fans of contemporary mystery with heart.

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.