Book Smart Kate

The Verifiers (2022) and The Rivals (Dec 3, 2024) by Jane Pek – Many thanks to @prhaudio for #gifted listening copies of the first two books in the Claudia Lin mystery series published by @vintagebooks #prhaudioinfluencer 

This is a two-in-one review because I read the description of the upcoming book The Rivals and thought it sounded fantastic but recognized I’d want to start with the first book in the series. I ended up loving Claudia, the main character, and binged these two back-to-back. 

Claudia is a life-long mystery reader and English major who has been disappointing her family for years by going against family norms of finding a great career and a nice Chinese boy to settle down with. Two problems: First, she’s a lesbian. Second, she has a job; she just can’t talk about it. Claudia is part of an exclusive referral-only detective agency called Veracity. They help people confirm the validity of online dating love interests. The last few months have been a heart-pounding, death-defying thrill ride. From uncovering corporate deception and rocketing to a new role at Veracity in The Verifiers to tackling the ethical dilemmas of AI and corporate espionage in The Rivals, she’s been putting her mystery-loving mind to work unraveling lies and deceit within the online dating world while also dealing with a mountain of drama from her mother, brother, sister,  roommate and complex dating life.

I love a messy, whip-smart main character and Claudia is a new favorite. Her internal monologue is funny and imaginative; when her internal thoughts tumble into the world, flummoxing her business partners and siblings, there is welcome comic relief. These mysteries each do a great job of calling back to classic mystery elements (old-school spies, locked room mysteries, etc.) while thoroughly grounded in the modern age of online dating, artificial intelligence, data encryption, and digital ethics. Each book brings elements of pulse-pounding moments as Claudia unravels the case, and I enjoy that Pek neatly tied up one mystery in each book, leaving readers feeling like they got a satisfying conclusion while also opening new doors on both the personal and professional fronts that leave us wanting the next book as soon as possible. The unique nature of Claudia’s upbringing plays a huge role in the stories, and the sibling dynamics are as compelling as the mystery itself. It has been a while since I’ve fallen this hard for a new-to-me mystery series, and I’m thrilled to have more of the series to look forward to.

Both audiobooks are narrated by Eunice Wong, who is fantastic at embodying Claudia. Each audiobook is roughly 12 hours long, and I absolutely inhaled them.