John F Hanley was born in Jersey in 1946. He grew up surrounded by the massive fortifications the Nazis had constructed to stop the British reclaiming the island they had bombed and occupied in 1940. He discovered that everyone, including his mother, who had endured that occupation had stories to tell. Eventually he decided to immerse himself in the history of that period and use some of that first-hand material to write a series of novels set during the Second World War.Before he had the luxury of retirement to fund the time for such a venture he spent nearly forty years teaching in London, Cornwall and Jersey where he ended his career as deputy headteacher of his old high school. When he was eighteen he left the island to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He often wondered what it would have been like to be eighteen in 1939 and faced with a rather different choice and this question provided the initial impetus for the series.He has now completed three novels in the planned series of ten. The first Against The Tide was published on 1st October 2010. The second, The Last Boat, set in 1940 is ready for publication and will be available soon. The final novel, HO 17, is also ready though, as the characters keep seizing control of their own story lines, he has to constantly update it to accommodate their little surprises.At present he is working on the third in the series provisionally entitled Room 39 which is set in 1941 and introduces the occupant of that particular lair - Fleming, Ian Fleming.