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.

What a strange, but intriguing book. A young woman goes to work for a secretive firm that investigates online dating relationships. But only under tightly-controlled rules, which gets the young woman in trouble when she grows too determined to detect on behalf of a murdered client (who was, apparently, a struggling writer investigating dating services using her sister's identity). Our heroine is a mystery fan, and she can't resist seeing her life as a story.

It's not the most suspenseful narrative, but it's original and asks some interesting questions about self-representation, online relationships, and the ways these systems are kept in a black box.

Like other reviewers, I was super excited to read a mystery with a Chinese-American female protagonist (I'm also Chinese-American and have been a long-time mystery fan!).

I'm also a millennial, so this book definitely drew me in right away with its dating app mystery. Unfortunately, it lacked in execution for me; I felt like the unraveling of the mystery dragged in the middle with many red herrings, and the ending was confusing and somewhat unsatisfying for me.

The story somewhat expands to become a larger commentary on how we (mis)present ourselves on the Internet, both intentionally and unintentionally. I thought this was the biggest strength of the book; it all felt so relatable and true given the culture of the Internet we all live in today.

love love LOVE!

i was sold on this story the moment i read the synopsis, but seeing it all come to life felt so special. the mystery and twist that happens at the 17% mark got me hooked but i ultimately fell in love with claudia, the chinese-american protagonist who’s trying to keep her family happy all while pursuing her dreams and solving an insane mystery. and i haven’t even mentioned the tech/dating app/algorithm storylines in this book that i loved. read this if you’ve ever been frustrated at a dating app or stayed up at night wondering if your mother would be disappointed in your life decisions.

thanks to net galley for this kindle e-arc!

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

First off, as a reader of Asian descent, I am so excited to support the author, who is originally from Singapore. There really needs to be more authors and protagonists of color in the mystery genre. Just like the protagonist of this book, I grew up reading mysteries ranging from Nancy Drew to Sherlock Holmes. I would have loved to see an Asian detective on TV. Thank you again to the publisher for this opportunity!

The Verifiers by Jane Pek is an excellent #ownvoices mystery and techno-thriller that seems poised to become a future classic. The story revolves around Claudia Lin, who quit her job six months ago to work for an online dating detective agency. The agency investigates online profiles for their clients to see if they match up with real life. For example, a woman comes in and wants to know if the man that she's matched with on Tinder is as good-looking as his profile picture or if he's using an older picture. When a client winds up dead, Claudia goes behind her boss's back to do some investigating of her own. What she finds is a sinister web of deceit.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 1 in which Komla, Claudia's boss, explains their company to a client:

"A detective agency might seem like an obvious parallel, he said, but he tried to dissuade clients from viewing Veracity as such. The verifiers didn’t solve crimes, and they didn’t intervene in the course of events beyond reporting their findings to their clients. Think of us, said Komla, as a personal investments advisory firm.
A month into the job, it’s obvious to me that all our clients think of us as a detective agency.
“It’s highly unusual,” Komla is saying to Iris, “for clients to ask us to verify matches they haven’t yet met in person.”
She frowns like she thinks he’s making an excuse to pass on the case. “Why?”"

Overall, The Verifiers is a well-written mystery about the perils of online dating. One highlight in this book is the representation. I read a ton of mysteries and thrillers every year, and it's so refreshing to see myself represented in this book. If I had to complain about one thing, I would say that I thought I was coming in for an Agatha Christie-style mystery. A character even refers to Claudia as "Miss Marple" at one point as a joke. I thought that the murderer would be unveiled in the end in a fashion similar to a classic mystery. Instead, this book has more techno-thriller aspects than what I was expecting. I would compare it to shows like Netflix's Black Mirror or the movie The Circle. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of mysteries in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in February!