I received this email today. It is a bit disjointed below because I have removed any detail that might help the Uzbek government identify the sender. It really cheered me up on a morning when I needed it badly!
Dear Craig,
I was going to buy your book ‘Murder in Samarkand’ on the way home in Books etc a week ago as I heard a lot about it lately but unfortunately they did not have any in their store. Today I asked my friend to find it for me and luckily he found it in Waterstones. When I came home the book was waiting for me. I started reading the book and suddenly after about 30-35 pages I noticed my friend staring at me with a really surprised expression on his face”..I was crying, I had proper tears in my eyes. I was amazed that your book is so well written that it made me go through a lot of things in the past that I had back home in Uzbekistan.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself, I come from …, my name is …, (this is my English name, the Uzbek one is hard to pronounce) and am ”. I now have been in the UK for … I live in …. …made me learn a lot of stuff including English. It is amazing place despite quite a few downsides. I did my degree back home in but never managed to find a job in this field as all political places like Ministries etc are mostly … I had a pretty good job and life back home but overall cultural, political and economical strain made me run away at least to have some break and live a stress free life for a little while.
I can not remember exactly now but I think I saw you quite a few times on the TV. I might be wrong but I think you could speak Russian pretty fluently. Things did not change a lot since you left Uzbekistan. Everything is almost the same unfortunately. I am really sorry for all bad things you had to go through in Uzbekistan. I wish it was a place that I could be proud of. All educated people were aware of what was going on when you suddenly had to leave Uzbekistan.
I would like to thank you for writing a book about this completely lost and forgotten part of the world.
Warm regards and many thanks for your wonderful book,