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Emily Bright

Ask a Bookseller: 'The Verifiers'

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Verifiers book cover
"The Verifiers" by Jane Pek.
Publisher

How do you make sure the person you met through a matchmaking app is who they say they are? In Jane Pek's novel "The Verifiers," you'd hire an amateur detective like protagonist Claudia Lin to do a little digging.

Pek's novel is this week's book recommendation from Angela Schwesnedl of Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis.

Lin's family doesn't know what she does for work. They don't know she's queer, either, and Schwesnedl says those evasions lead to some close calls as she bikes across New York City to meet work and family requirements.

As for what that work entails, Schwesnedl says there's a classic set-up: a beautiful young woman walks into the agency asking for help — and then goes missing.

Part detective story, part family story, "The Verifiers" got Schwesnedl thinking about how we really know when the person we're talking to online tells the truth, and what kind of data are those dating apps getting from us.