The identity of a mystery critic who has been prowling Ludlow’s restaurants has been revealed – with the help of Twitter and an IT expert who can’t afford to eat in the places featured.

Mr Pernickety, the author of a gastronomic guide to Ludlow, has been unmasked as bestselling author and Ludlow resident Peter Burden. Mr Burden is a distant relative of the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.

He was unmasked in a joint operation by Shropshire Star reporter Andy Richardson, who contacted him via Twitter, and IT lecturer Bill Pearson, from Nantwich. Mr Pearson said: “It wasn’t too difficult to track him down. I think he’d left enough clues for people to find out.”

Mr Pearson added: “I run my own food blog – http://goodfoodshops.blogspot.com – which looks at food in Cheshire and neighbouring counties.

“I’ve written a lot about Shropshire, though I can’t afford to eat in some of the fine dining restaurants in Mr Pernickety’s guide.”

Today Mr Burdern accepted that the game was up, and said: “It’s our bad luck that we didn’t cover my identity well enough.

“The aim of the guide is to tell it like it is. A lot of people, without knowing I’d written it, have told me how accurate it is, so we’ve done something right.”

Mr Burden has written a number of bestselling books, a series of race-track thrillers with Jenny Pitman, autobiographies with star actors and a book called Rags, that made the Sunday Times bestseller list. He lived in Herefordshire for 20 years before moving to Ludlow.