Private investigator Mitch Watson makes a decent living in a small, Middle-American city. He mostly looks into fraud and insurance claims along with the occasional case of adultery. But the stakes rise when Henry, one of his poker buddies, calls him after a game to tell him that he just got home to find his wife with an axe imbedded in her throat. Now Mitch has a murder to solve.
There aren't many clues to start off with, but with dogged investigation, Mitch finds the list of suspects growing...and he begins to learn things about Henry's wife that Henry had no idea of. And before long, what Mitch learns starts to put him in danger too. With a likable, everyman investigator who enjoys nothing more than a game of poker and a Bud Light, along with a cast of characters who keep him guessing, The Man with the Axe entertainingly examines the persistence and gritty footwork necessary to unravel a mystery and catch a killer.