By Czerena Martinne Bayle
Dating in the twenty-first century, New York City, and a murder mystery—Jane Pek’s debut novel, The Verifiers, follows Claudia Lin, a young Chinese American lesbian, as she navigates work, relationships, and life in New York City. Claudia is the youngest daughter of a single, immigrant mother. She recently started working at Veracity, a detective service within the matchmaking industry that verifies the identities of users who are unsure about their romantic “matches.” Veracity conducts online and in-person research at a hefty cost, often following their clients’ matches into gyms or tracking their location online. Claudia decides to take matters into her own hands when one of her clients passes away. Her research leads her down a rabbit hole of technological advancements, matchmaking, and corporate secrets. Claudia must juggle her personal, dating, and work life, all while investigating her client’s death.
Social media and technology have gradually become more intertwined in our lives. I, for one, am constantly on my phone, often flipping through different social media apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. In addition to the potential dangers that social media has on the self-esteem of users, there has also been increasing fear of the ways these platforms track us and log our data. This has gained national traction following the TikTok congressional hearing. U.S. lawmakers are worried about the long-term effects TikTok has on data sharing. In one of the congressional hearings, TikTok CEO Shou Zi “Chew repeatedly denied the app shares data or has connections with the Chinese Communist Party and argued the platform was doing everything to ensure safety for its 150 million American users.” TikTok is not the only app to face scrutiny. According to The Guardian, “Facebook’s year started with allegations that a deadly insurrection on the US Capitol was largely planned on its platform.” This is not the first time that social media and politics have been syncretic. Many politicians are using various social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to get their messages out and to interact with their followers; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a prime example. There are a plethora of other accounts dedicated to politics on all social media platforms.
This ongoing debate about data tracking and social media platforms’ ability to influence politics seem to be where Pek drew inspiration. Without giving too much away, the book talks about the legal limitations of data sharing. The book even references the possibility of using social media or technology to push a political agenda, touching upon the issues of artificial intelligence, data sharing, and privacy. Although I did appreciate the effort, these themes act more as plot points to push her story forward and as a means to tie in real-world elements into the book rather than offering any insight or criticism of the way they impact our daily lives and politics. From mindlessly scrolling through TikTok to the software that can generate a picture based on a few words, technology and social media have become pivotal figures in our lives and Pek barely expands on that despite its centrality to Claudia’s work.
I was really excited to read this book because it seemed to encompass some of my major interests: a compelling mystery, technology, and New York City. I loved how the author stayed true to the character’s culture, and it shows throughout the book in the descriptions of food and the way that characters interact with each other. I loved how Pek explored Claudia’s family dynamics, from the way her mom had to send her two older siblings to Taiwan to be taken of by their grandparents at one point to how her older brother’s education has molded him into the perfect, hardworking, but whitewashed employee and arguments over who the favorite child really is. As the oldest sibling of immigrant parents, I think the portrayal of her brother was very relatable and real. He was described as the typical overachieving role model to his younger sisters and was always there for his family.
However, in my opinion, this book fell short. While reading it, I got lost a number of times, causing me to have a hard time finishing this book. As a true crime and murder mystery junky, this book failed to exceed my expectations because Pek uses an unnecessary amount of matchmaking terminology that gets lost in the book instead of using those terms to expand the world within the book or to better explain Claudia’s profession to the reader. Claudia’s sister and her storyline were rushed and messy; we meet her and learn of her own relationship struggles (suspicions her boyfriend is cheating on her, learns a short story he wrote is based on her own familial trauma) with little resolution. The book jumps from storyline to storyline, making it difficult to keep track of what is going on. Halfway through the book, the story starts picking up and quite literally goes from zero to 100, making it even harder to follow what is going on. Similar to Mia P. Manansala’s Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series, The Verifiers uses food and familial ties to help build on characters. However, unlike Manansala’s stories, this mystery is predictable. This book failed to hold my attention for more than ten pages at a time. While I really wanted to like this book and there was so much potential with this story, it fell flat.
The Verifiers is available from Bookshop, Book Soup, Charm City Books, City Lights Bookstore, East City Bookshop, and East Wind Books.
Czerena Martinne Bayle is a Filipina American student interested in true crime, romance, and storytelling. Born and raised in Maui, Hawai’i, she is currently pursuing her B.F.A. in broadcast journalism and documentary with a minor in peace studies at Chapman University.