Daddy by Default

September 27, 2010
A court-system mistake forces a man to pay child support for a child that's not his. Tucker addresses this surprisingly not so unlikely situation and other Texas law conundrums in this dazzling drama, her first trade paperback after a series of mass market titles (Proceed with Caution). Parker and Roxanne Redman are heading home in sadness after Roxanne's suffered another miscarriage when Parker's pulled over for speeding and arrested for $45,000 in delinquent child support for a child that's not his, by a woman he doesn't even know. Meanwhile, Parker's best friend James, who's divorcing his wife, Serena, has just agreed to pay child support for six-year-old Semaj, ill with sickle cell anemia, although James later learns through a blood test that Semaj is not his biological daughter. Tucker's dissection of family law and corruption in the welfare system is both fascinating and horrifying. The men and the women involved, including Parker's distraught wife, Roxy; working-the-system welfare mom Lachez Baker; and out-of-control Serena come vividly to life, along with the innocent children caught in the crossfire of paternity fraud.