Wilberforce is a former millionaire who has bought a large wine cellar and is busy drinking his way through it, becoming an alcoholic, though he lucidly explains the differences between his behaviour and that of a classic alcohlic. A long suffering doctor friend becomes his foil. We start to lose sympathy with Wilberforce when he wakes up after this latest binge and as we regress into his story he beomes less likeable with each page. Where before there was some sympathy with a widower, we soon see how his own obsession has affected all those around him. We read of the spark of life that was Catherine who along with the svengali like Francis Black, the owner of the remains of a former grand estae now reduced to bits of a mansion and a cellar he refers to as 'the undercroft'. Only once do we see the undercroft for what it really is, although an auctioneer gives hints to the delusion that both Black and Wilberforce have gone through.

In four sections, or 'vintages' as the book's suggests. We see Wilberforce as a workaholic software pioneer. He just swops one aholic for another, but ruins an engagement, sours his own marriage and even lets down his rarely glimpsed foster mother. For no reason Torday throws in daydreams of a negotiator in Bogota, with the briefest of medical references, and this not only jars the flow, but also suggests that the author was beginning to lose patience with the character too.

Wilberforce isn't a monster, but a self delusional fool, and there are too many of them around at the moment. The question is why has Torday introduced us to him. The trick of using reverse chronology covers up what is a straightforward plod from geek to bore and how he lost everyone and everything.