Ed Loy is asked by Dessie Delaney, a former client, to look after his brother, Paul, a rising soccer star. Dessie is afraid Paul may be involved with Jack Cullen, an ex IRA man with dubious ties. An abortive attack is made in the field when Paul is playing, and later Paul is found murdered. Loy feels guilty that he hadn't protected Paul and begins to probe into the murder.

At the same time, he is approached by Anne Fogarty. Her father had been killed fifteen years ago, and she now feels that the police arrested the wrong person. She believes that the true killer is one of three men to whom her father, a revenue inspector, had written letters detailing their criminal activity. The three are: Bobby Doyle, now a property developer; Jack Cullen, head of a gang of IRA men; and George Halligan, an underworld czar and enemy of Hoy. All men had IRA connections.

Hoy's search for the truth in both cases takes him into the perilous world of Irish politics, both past and present.

All the Dead Voices is a powerful story of the complicated history of Ireland. Hughes paints a dark and colorful picture of Dublin with its bloody past and precarious present. The characters are vivid and at times frightening.

This is a well written, suspenseful thriller. Not being Irish, I had some difficulty distinguishing between IRA and INLA; and then there is the Irish slang, or "Dublinese," which took some translating into English. Be that as it may, this is well worth reading. Well recommended just for the picture of the society of the times.