Jane Pek

Introducing a sharp-witted heroine for the 21st century: a new amateur sleuth exploring the landscape—both physical and virtual—of New York in a debut novel about love, technology, and murder. Claudia Lin is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client goes missing, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.

A prescient literary mystery about corporate espionage, family dynamics, and the follow-up to Jane Pek’s “thoroughly modern twist on classic detective fiction,” The Verifiers (New York Times Book Review)“Exhilaratingly well-written. I loved it so much that I didn’t want it to end.” —Emily St. John Mandel on The VerifiersClaudia Lin—mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major—has scored her dream co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency whose mission is to determine if chronically online New Yorkers are telling the truth about themselves to their prospective partners. Unfortunately, along the way, she and her colleagues—tech wizard Squirrel, and the beautiful and intimidating Becks—have uncovered a nefarious AI conspiracy. And the corrupt corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets.Luckily, a client’s ex is ready to turn on his employers—slipping Claudia thumb drives and setting up secret meetings to exchange information about what the company is up to behind the scenes. But even as Claudia starts to get a feel for this new genre—just call her Lin, Claudia Lin—she's distracted by the romantic tension with both Becks and a flirtatious and charming target. There’s also the fear that her older brother, Charles, is unwittingly falling into the corporation's deadly web through his consulting work. How can you know who to trust if you are keeping secrets and lying to those you love? How real are the carefully constructed identities we present to the world, online and off? The Rivals simultaneously skewers and celebrates spy stories while also revealing the ways technology is reshaping who we think we are.