A GHOST HUNTER web

A GHOST HUNTER'S GUIDE TO SOLVING A MURDER

Cosy crime meets historical fiction in this brand new quirky and gripping paranormal mystery from F. H. Petford.

Christmas, 1914. Shortly after Miss Alma Timperley unexpectedly inherits a hotel in wartime Falmouth, one of the maids is found dead. The police are baffled, but Alma’s astonishing secret might just be the key to solving the murder…

Now out in all formats and available online and in bookshops.

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Books

A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder
Meet Alma Timperley. She can: Run a hotel, Solve a mystery, Talk to ghosts?
Find out more
The Ghosts of Passchendaele
A supernatural crime thriller set in an isolated English village
The Death of Conscience
A rogue letter threatens the newly won peace in Europe
A Question of Malice
A classic locked room murder mystery, with a remarkable supernatural twist

About

Hi folks, thanks for visiting. I live in Somerset, England, and the climb up Glastonbury Tor is a local walk. What a lucky lad!

My working life was mainly spent in creative agencies writing for corporate clients and the London theatre.

I’d had various ideas for books over the years, then Covid happened and on day one of the lockdown in 2020 I typed the words ‘The Ghosts of Passchendaele’ at the top of a blank page.

I was lucky enough to have my work noticed by Kate Hodern, a wonderful literary agent and subsequently signed with Hodder and Stoughton to produce three new books featuring Alma Timperley – a young woman with an astonishing secret.

More about me

Notice Board

out now! Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder.

The big news is that this first book under the Hodder and Stoughton deal is due out in all formats on the 2nd of October 2025

A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to Solving a Murder

The big news is that this first book under the Hodder and Stoughton deal is due out in all formats on the 2nd of October 2025

The Great Tew Mystery Series

My first work. Classic English crime with a twist, set in the remote village of Great Tew in Oxfordshire immediately following World War One.