Review of A Daughter's Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story

A Daughter's Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story

By Jeremy Grimaldi

Dundurn, Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 2016

Review by Robert A. Waters

In the early morning hours of November 8, 2010, Hann Pan awoke to a pistol against his head. He was lead downstairs where he found another gunman holding his wife, Bich-Ha. Three robbers demanded money, big money. The Pans had a little over $2,000 in the house and gave it to the masked intruders. Then a volley of shots rang out. When it was over, Bich-Ha lay dead and Hann, debilitated by gunshots, stumbled out of the house to get help.

A third family member, 24-year-old Jennifer Pan, survived the shootings. She'd been tied to an upstairs railing, and called 911 after the robbers left.

At first it seemed to be a random home invasion. But police investigators would soon uncover a dark plot so twisted it almost defied belief. Jennifer had left the door open for the killers, then had played victim for the cops when they arrived. However, she hadn't planned for her father to survive. After several days in a coma, Hann awoke and revealed his daughter's part in the plot.

Hann and Bich-Ha were Vietnam immigrants. Both worked hard and expected their children to do the same. Their son was a successful university student, and, until recently, the Pans thought Jennifer had been studying to be a pharmacist at the University of Toronto. But all was not as it seemed.

With this book, Jeremy Grimaldi has taken his place as one of Canada's premier true crime authors.

In A Daughter's Deadly Deception, the reader is carried into a world of “tiger parenting,” in which Asian children are pushed by their parents to succeed, regardless of the cost. The reader encounters love, betrayal, and finally, cold-blooded murder.

I highly recommend this book to my American and Canadian readers.