WE start near the end, with our hero Matthew Viss throwing himself off a nine-storey block. As he falls, he recounts the year leading up to his decision to end it all.

After walking out on his wife and child because he felt he was a disappointment to them, he starts a new job with The Greatest Gift. It's the ultimate service industry job; he's a 'Guy Friday' whose role it is to meet the demands of his clients, from booking a top restaurant for lunch, buying gifts for family and friends, to choosing holidays and even picking and naming pets - mostly from the end of a phone.

Matthew excels at his job and is soon promoted. He starts to feel a lot better about himself, something which is boosted further when he begins to give blood at the local hospital and donate large sums of money to needy causes. But not worthy enough yet to return home.

Instead he takes up with Grace, who works at the hospital, and throws himself into punitive gym workouts and ever more work until things begin to fall apart: first his body, then his relationship and finally the beloved job.

A visit to a psychiatrist reveals a family tragedy which explains Matthew's emptiness and desire to please: but is it too late to turn his life around?

Danny Leigh's first novel has much to admire in it, not least his out-of-sync narrative and the punctuating of Matthew's story with off-stage snippets about the goings-on of the other characters in his life.

As a commentary on our present call-centre culture, Leigh paints a bleak picture of lives bled dry in the effort to be of service.

Updated: 08:40 Wednesday, March 31, 2004