THE VERIFIERS

A cool, cerebral, and very funny debut novel about a young woman who works for an agency that investigates potential online dating partners and who has relationship questions—and quests—of her own.

Claudia Lin has a pretty excellent job. She works at Veracity, a detective agency that helps vet potential partners for clients pursuing romance via dating apps. Claudia is very much into literary mysteries—her go-to comfort reading is a murder-mystery series featuring one Inspector Yuan—as well as literature in general. Her astute, often acerbic observations prove a heady combination, contributing to Claudia’s engaging voice: She keeps the narrative moving at a fast-paced clip. When a new client wants Veracity to investigate a recent online flirt who’s ghosted said client—and when this request is followed in quick succession by another verification request—Claudia is all in, ably abetted by Finders Keepers, a proprietary app that can track people’s whereabout through their cellphones. Meanwhile, in her personal life, Claudia has a stake in keeping her own secrets hidden from her more conventional immigrant family: Not only is she dead set against the type of Chinese husband her mom wishes for her, she also regularly measures herself against her much higher achieving brother and sister. Beautifully complemented by entertaining secondary characters that include Claudia’s artistic roommate, Max, and Lionel, Claudia’s sister’s boyfriend, Claudia is the seductive protagonist in a tale that delves into the dark heart of contemporary technology, not to mention the foibles of the human heart.

With an inquisitive, clever, and curious narrator, this adventurous mystery is both scary and hilarious.