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Don't be misled by Dirty Diplomacy's subtitle. As Britain's ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, author Craig Murray mostly drank vodka, chased only one woman and failed to bust any dictators.

On this last point, it's not for lack of trying. Soon after taking up his post, Murray is shown pictures of a corpse of a man who, prior to being immersed in boiling liquid, was beaten around the face and had his fingernails ripped out. That event provided the inspiration for the British release of the book's more accurate title: Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror. Murray attempted to expose the country's human rights record, in which people are falsely accused, imprisoned and tortured, and women are routinely raped by the police.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the party line. British officials, standing side-by-side the Americans, seemed more intent on recognizing Uzbekistan's progress toward freedom -- of which there has been arguably little -- than its transgressions in the area of human rights. America's reasons for championing Uzbekistan, in turn, seem to have had a lot more to do with the U.S. desire to maintain an airbase in the country than any actual action by the Uzbekistan authorities to create a more democratic country or free market economy.

Defying the diplomats at home got Murray into some trouble, setting off a media storm in Britain; higher-ups tried to remove him under a set of trumped-up charges. At first, Murray prevailed, remaining in Uzbekistan, but eventually he was forced out. Dirty Diplomacy offers his side of the story. As an inside view of the work of an ambassador, it's interesting; as an indictment of British and American hypocrisy in their so-called "War on Terror," it's damning. The irony, for America at least, came in May 2005, when Uzbek police killed an estimated 700 protestors, and soon after evicted the American airbase. Hardly diplomatic -- but dirty, indeed.