Jerry Murland is a retired headteacher who has written over twenty books and guidebooks coverering the events of the First and Second World Wars. His first book, Aristocrats Go To War, was published by Pen and Sword in 2010 and since then he has gone on the write a number of others, including the Battlelines Guidebooks to the Western Front, co-written with Jon Cooksey. _The Defence of St Valery-en-Caux 1940_ is the last in a series of eight Battleground books that provide a comprehensive account of the desperate fighting in May and June 1940 that culminated in the evacuation of the BEF from the beaches of northern France, notably from Dunkirk.