The Axel Files

The Man With 21 Faces is back.

Private Detective Axel Webb is called to Japan by his Yakuza partner and friend, Hibiki Sato, to help the authorities find who's behind the new threats. Axel's expertise is finding lost, stolen, or misappropriated relics of great value, not people. However, the Japanese Naichō and PSIA requested his unofficial help in solving the problem. Axel has no choice but to help.

The Man With 21 Faces has remained silent for forty years. But in 1984, his crime spree involved kidnapping, property destruction, corporate harassment, product poisoning, and demands for ransoms, none of which were ever collected. The Man With 21 Faces may not have profited from his crime, but he did almost bankrupt two giant snack food and baby food manufacturers by randomly poisoning packages of their products.

The failure of the police to capture The Man With 21 Faces was so damaging to the public's confidence in the authorities that the police Superintendent in charge of the investigation committed suicide by setting himself on fire. Now, after forty years, The Man With 21 Faces is back, and this time he means to collect.

Like most of Axel's cases, the solution lies in the forgotten history that predates the 1984 incidents, a history forgotten by the public and the authorities but not by those who suffered from corporate greed, court corruption, and a government coverup that ruined thousands of lives.

For The Man With 21 Faces, revenge is a bitter treat.