Started: May 2nd
Finished: May 13th
TSM Rating: 3/5

The Verifiers was an interesting read. It’s a niche organization that specializes in tracking online dating matches. It follows the story of Claudia Lin, who works for a mysterious agency of private investigators on steroids.

The story begins with a client, Iris Lettriste, who comes to the agency to discover the truth about a man she has matched with. As Claudia and her colleagues, Komla and Becks, look into this mystery man, Irs shows up dead. Thus begins Claudia’s spiral into a world of mystery and intrigue like the detective novels that she loves so much.

At the core of this story is human connection and relations. How do we see ourselves? How do we see each other? Which version of ourselves is true: the version we show the world or the version we keep to ourselves? In all of that, how does this affect our ability to find true love?

Claudia’s interest n working for Veracity is purely for the investigation aspect of the job. She has no interest in finding a relationship for herself, nor does she really foster her relationships with her friends and family. That’s not to say that she doesn’t love them and appreciate their place in her life, but, as is brought up by both her brother and her sister, she takes a lot for granted. Granted, she does some of that because she doesn’t seek the attention given to her, i.e., her mother constantly tries to set her up with a nice Chinese boy (Claudia is a lesbian), and her brother tries to find her a perfect corporate job.

As she goes down the rabbit hole to discover what really happened to Iris Lettriste, Claudia finds that everyone is hiding something, even from the people who are supposed to know us best. Her investigation also raises the question of how far we are willing to go to protect the people that we love and who claim to love us back.

It’s a fun, if not at times frustrating, mystery as Claudia always seems to be behind the proverbial eight ball, even when it seems like she’s figured everything out. My favorite part of the book was the subplot of Claudia looking into her sister, Coraline’s boyfriend, and the discoveries she makes about trust, truth, and how far some are willing to go in their own selfish pursuits of success.