Harry Levin, a Holocaust survivor and scrap metal dealer in Detroit, lives a quiet life until he gets a late night phone call telling him his daughter has been killed in an automobile accident. Harry goes to Washington DC to claim the body and finds out the other driver is a German diplomat who was driving drunk. Ernst Hess, the diplomat, is granted immunity from prosecution. Harry, whose parents were killed at Dachau, follows Hess to Munich to exact his own vigilante justice, and hears the voices of the dead that haunt his past.

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Ernst Hess is still a dedicated Nazi twenty-six years after the Holocaust. What makes Hess a compelling villain is his ability to blend in. He seems harmless, even avuncular. His victims underestimate him and then it's too late. Hess is a psychopath who kills without remorse, and yet, at times he's surprisingly human. Hess' mission is to hunt down Harry Levin and Joyce Cantor, who witnessed his death squad murder six hundred people in the forest outside Dachau concentration camp in 1942.

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Cordell Sims is a likable street hustler. He sells dope to a receptive clientèle in the Detroit projects. After an undercover cop busts him, Cordell, looking at hard time, enlists in the army in lieu of incarceration. But after punching out his DI, he’s dishonorably discharged. Out of the army and back in one of his trademark leisure suits, Cordell feels free again. By chance he meets Harry Levin in a Munich rathskeller and these two mismatched minorities from the Motor City take on Hess and an army of Neo-Nazis bent on their destruction.

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When Joyce Cantor, a Holocaust survivor visits Munich for the first time in almost thirty years, she’s horrified when she sees Ernst Hess coming out of a restaurant. Hess is the SS officer who had her shot, thrown into a pit, and left for dead with hundreds of other Jews in 1942. Joyce is an eyewitness who can help convict Hess of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But when she returns to her hotel room and sees a swastika painted on the wall, Joyce loses her nerve and gets out of Germany as fast as she can. Little does she know, Hess will be coming for her.

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The year is 1971. The place is Detroit. Harry Levin, a scrap metal dealer and Holocaust survivor, has just learned that his daughter was killed in a car accident. Traveling to Washington, DC to claim the body, he learns that the accident was caused by a German diplomat who was driving drunk. This is only the beginning of the horror for Harry, though, as he discovers that the diplomat will never face charges – he has already been released and granted immunity. Enraged and aggrieved, Harry discovers the identity of his daughter’s killer, follows him to Munich, and hunts him down. What Harry finds out about the diplomat and his plans will explode his life and the lives of everyone around him.

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Brimming with action and dark humor, Voices of the Dead, firmly positions Peter Leonard as a writer ever suspense fan needs to read.