... and Cumberbatch even manages to get the pronunciation of "Alleyn" right (most of the time) in this one -- in some of his other recordings, he doesn't, and it annoys me no end because Marsh was incredibly specific as to that! :)
One reader who consistently gets it right is Anton Lesser -- the other main narrator (besides Benedict Cumberbatch) of the Hachette Digital Audio abridged recordings. Most of the readers of the unabridged versions (available on Audible) thankfully also get it right.
Stress on the first syllable, and the "y" is inaudible -- "ALLen". He's named for the Elizabethan / Jacobean actor Edward "Ned" Alleyn (the star of most of Marlowe's plays), whose name was pronounced that way. (Marsh herself was a veteran director of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries before she ever started writing mysteries.)
So, if I hear an audio narrator repeatedly pronouncing the name "allEYN", I know that he (or she, FWIW) hasn't gone to terribly great lengths to familiarize themselves with the material first ... it's not like you have to search long and hard for that bit of info on the series's central character.
One reader who consistently gets it right is Anton Lesser -- the other main narrator (besides Benedict Cumberbatch) of the Hachette Digital Audio abridged recordings. Most of the readers of the unabridged versions (available on Audible) thankfully also get it right.
So, if I hear an audio narrator repeatedly pronouncing the name "allEYN", I know that he (or she, FWIW) hasn't gone to terribly great lengths to familiarize themselves with the material first ... it's not like you have to search long and hard for that bit of info on the series's central character.