BG2 - September 22nd 2023

Review - The Verifiers by Jane Pek                                           

Singapore is where Jane Pek was born and raised. She graduated from Yale University with a BA, the New York University School of Law with a JD, and Brooklyn College with an MFA in fiction. Her short stories have also appeared twice in The Best American Short Stories. Her work has also appeared in Witness, Conjunctions, Literary Hub, and The Brooklyn Review. She currently resides in New York and works as a lawyer for a multinational investment firm.

The world of online dating apps, mystery in the matchmaking business, the use of artificial intelligence in creating fake dating profiles, murder, and providing fertile new ground for people to deceive, defraud, and possibly murder one another, was a good premise for a story in "The Verifiers," Jane Pek's debut novel.

Let me introduce you to Claudia Lin, a shrewd 21st-century amateur sleuth. Claudia Lin is portrayed as a Queens native who is LGBT and commutes everywhere by bicycle. She works for a company called Veracity, that confirms the identity of its clients' online love interests. Outing liars, including unfaithful spouses, fabulists who lie about their employment or age, and gamers who switch between multiple personas and applications, is Veracity's bread and butter.

Claudia’s love of detective fiction is her primary qualification. This passion comes to light when Veracity is hired by a mysterious client named Iris Lettriste to investigate two potential suitors, one of whom she has never actually met.  You will either love or hate the parallels to a fictitious ancient Chinese investigator and Pride and Prejudice that are woven throughout the entire novel. I understand that Claudia has always enjoyed mysteries and that she completed her senior thesis on Jane Austen, but eventually I felt that this detracted from the plot.

The Verifiers occasionally reads like a witty and astute analysis of how technology influences our decisions and the nature of romantic love in the digital era. But the parts involving Claudia's relatives are where it really shines. I wished I could have learned more about Claudia's mother, the decisions she was forced to make, and perhaps even the dynamics of the family.

Many of Claudia's actions make her decisions seem naive, but it also seems like the author did this to make it fit within the story. I suppose it was necessary to introduce the primary plot point where Claudia defied company policy and investigated the murder of her customer on her own initiative, unearthing both corporate and personal dishonesty.

I would surely hope that Jane Pek in her next book expands on the plot involving Claudia and her family. Pek did a fantastic job of capturing how they hated and loved each other yet came together for joyful occasions.

Our group rated the book 6.5/10.

Santhi Nair-Moine