BORED WITH MURDER MYSTERIES THAT ALL FEEL THE SAME? Try crime fiction with an edge of the uncanny.
In my humorous dark comedy series of novels, Heaven has modernised.
The old gods have become a staffing problem.
Elderby St Michael is an unassuming Yorkshire village, you won’t find on any map, where the retired, discarded and administratively inconvenient tend to end up.
Ancient powers live under ordinary names.
Heaven and Hell follow procedure.
The villagers know better than to ask too many questions.
Unfortunately, the dead keep refusing to cooperate.
Welcome to the Elderby St Michael Mysteries.
Start with The Wrong Christ.
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★★★★★ "Super quirky, creepy, and ridiculously fun."
— Sonja, Amazon (Verified Purchase)
Phil Brunger
I’m Phil Brunger, and I’m currently writing a humorous dark comedy series of novels about systems, secrecy, belief, bureaucracy, and the people trapped inside them. My fiction moves between satire, mystery, speculative ideas, and black humour, with a particular interest in institutions under pressure and the absurd machinery of order.
For most of my working life, I dealt in systems, precision, structure, and problem-solving.
I was an automation and sales engineer, and for the last ten years of my career I worked across Europe selling robotics and autonomous mobile robots. It was a world of process, logistics, technical detail, and making complex things function in the real world. On the surface, it may not look like the obvious route into fiction. In practice, it explains a great deal.
Because while I was building a career in engineering and automation, another part of my mind was quietly filling up with stories — strange ideas, dark comic premises, speculative worlds, impossible systems, and people trapped inside structures that no longer behave as intended. Retirement did not create that pressure. It simply removed the lid.
The Elderby St Michael Series of Novels
THE GODS RETIRED. THE VILLAGE WASN’T CONSULTED. So what happens when beings who once controlled death, storms, war, prophecy and time are given mortal bodies, ordinary houses and far too much free time? They do what everyone else does. They garden. Join committees. Enter village competitions. Queue at the Post Office. Complain about parking. Offer to help with the roses. The difference is that when they get bored, lose their temper or misunderstand a perfectly innocent request, Wednesday can last until Friday, the allotments may require evacuation, and somebody usually has to explain the crater to the Parish Council. In Elderby St Michael, ancient power hasn’t vanished. It’s just been given a cardigan and told to behave. Most of them are adjusting remarkably well. It’s the others you need to worry about.
This is where the cooped-up ideas ended up.
Welcome to Phil’s literary world, where the first installment of the Elderby St. Michael series unfolds in a darkly comic, supernatural incident set in a English, Yorkshire village. Here, retired gods mingle with institutional oversight, hidden identities, and murder, creating a captivating backdrop for adventure. Ever wondered what happens when Gods retire? They move to Elderby St Michael.
Phil’s other novels promise to explore eccentric themes through a lens of satire, speculative bureaucracy, and metaphysical processes, blending the absurd with serious undertones. Dive in and enjoy a humorous yet thought-provoking journey through the extraordinary!