Zacharias does not go looking for trouble

Troublewrites ahead.

Introducing an unhurried, unmistakably quirky new series.

Discover Book One Meet Zacharias

Cover of Gentleman of the Road and Beyond by David Anthony Phillips

Cover of No Time Like the Right Time by David Anthony Phillips

The adventures so far

Two books. Several letters. One Gladstone bag nobody else can lift.

Book One

Gentleman of the Road and Beyond

A chocolate date leads to a date with destiny. Zacharias turns up for both. Eventually.

Letters arrive without warning, and Zacharias follows them wherever they lead, his silent companion Henry Woodworm at his side and a Gladstone bag nobody else can lift.

Their journey takes them to a city whose beloved chocolate dates have turned tasteless, the mysterious Souk of the Sands preparing for a camel marathon, and a chai shop that serves everything except an honest answer.

“…blimey.”
— Zacharias Zimmermann III

Publishing 25 August 2026 in paperback and on Kindle.

Pre-order on Kindle →

Book Two

No Time Like the Right Time

Zacharias has never much cared for being filed away. He’s not the only one.

A fading note pulls Zacharias and his silent companion, Henry Woodworm, from the Orient Express to Berlin, where ZoZo has noticed that everyone follows the rules, whether they make sense or not.

Together they travel to Istanbul, where a Quarter refuses to behave, rooftop cats seem to know everything, and a grey door leads to the Central Office of Certain Outcomes—devoted to making sure nothing remains uncertain for long.

ZoZo has questions. Zacharias has a twisted walking stick for pointing at things with great authority. They are about to give an entire bureaucracy something it has never filed before.

“I should coco.”
— Zacharias Zimmermann III

Coming soon in paperback and on Kindle.

In final edits

A gentleman of very particular habits

Meet Zacharias

Zacharias Zimmermann III set out on his Wanderjahre—the old German custom in which young craftsmen travel before settling down—a good while ago. He still hasn’t finished.

He travels light, by most standards: a black hat, a twisted walking stick, a Never-Ending Road Map and a Gladstone bag that appears to contain rather more than it should.

Letters have a habit of finding him, often before the trouble they describe has properly begun.

His companion, Henry Woodworm, goes everywhere he does and says considerably less about it.

“Onward, Henry.”

About the author

David Anthony Phillips

David Anthony Phillips spent too many years as a creative copywriter before deciding that Zacharias Zimmermann III had waited long enough.

He lives in Hamburg. He has never side-eyed a large fella in a red fez, ridden an emotionally challenged camel, or been chased through Istanbul in a food truck playing “La Cucaracha”—but he did once own a Gladstone bag.