Listen to Red File for Callan On BBC

BBC Radio aired the first installment of a 4-part abridged reading of James Mitchell's Red File for Callan this week, and for the next month you can listen online. Red File for Callan (originally published as A Magnum for Schneider) was the novel that introduced the world to David Callan, one of the great antiheroes of the spy genre. Mitchell adapted it twice for the screen, first as an episode of Armchair Theater (which actually predated publication of the book) that served as the pilot to the Callan TV series, and later as the feature film Callan, both starring the incomparable Edward Woodward. But the novel is fantastic in its own right, and deserving of a place alongside the better known likes of Deighton and Freemantle in the canon of working class spy fiction. While abridged versions are never the best way to read (or listen to) something, Ben Miles does quite a good job narrating, and free is infinitely preferable to the inexplicably steep price of the unabridged Story Sound audiobook (which is itself quite excellent if you can find it more cheaply).
UPDATE! And... you can get it more cheaply right now! When I composed this post last night it was its usual exorbitant $64.95, but at this moment it's available on Amazon for 88% off... just $7.86! At that price, go buy this unabridged audiobook right now! Buy it! Now! You won't regret it. Who knows how long this amazing deal will last.

Read my review of Acorn's Callan: Set 1 here.
Read my review of Acorn's Callan: Set 2 here.
Read my review of Network's Callan: The Monochrome Years here.