Tooth and Nail is a 1992 crime novel by Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin, OBE, DL , is a Scottish crime writer. His best known books are the Inspector Rebus novels. He has also written several pieces of literary criticism.-Background:He attended Beath High School, Cowdenbeath...

, originally entitled Wolfman. It is the third of the Inspector Rebus

Detective Inspector John Rebus

Detective Inspector John Rebus is the protagonist in the Inspector Rebus series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin, ten of which have so far been televised as Rebus...

 novels.

Plot summary

Rebus is drafted in by Scotland Yard

Scotland Yard

Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...

 to help track down a cannibalistic serial killer called the Wolfman, whose first victim was found in the East End of London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's lonely Wolf Street. His London colleague, George Flight, isn't happy at what he sees as interference, and Rebus encounters racial prejudice as well as the usual dangers of trying to catch a vicious killer.

When Rebus is offered a psychological profile of the Wolfman by an attractive woman, it seems too good an opportunity to miss.

Connections to other Rankin books

• Journalist Jim Stevens from Knots and Crosses and non-Rebus book Watchman
  Watchman (novel)
  Watchman is a 1988 novel written by Ian Rankin, and is one of the author's earliest works. Originally published in 1988, it was reissued with a new introduction by Rankin in 2004.-Plot summary:...
  
   makes a cameo appearance, again basing off his status quo in Watchman.

• Rebus briefly thinks "don't talk to me about Hyde", a reference to the events of Hide and Seek
  Hide and Seek (novel)
  Hide and Seek is a 1991 crime novel by Ian Rankin. It is the second of the Inspector Rebus novels.-Plot summary:Detective Inspector John Rebus finds the body of an overdosed drug addict in an Edinburgh squat, laid out cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, with a five-pointed...
  
  .

• Morris Gerald Cafferty makes his first appearance, in the background as a gangster Rebus has to give evidence against.

Writing Tooth and Nail

In the Exile on Princes Street foreword to Rebus: The Early Years, Rankin says he was living in London at the time of writing and didn't enjoy it, so "I brought Rebus to London so he could suffer, too". The original title was Wolfman but Rankin's American edition editor came up with the title Tooth and Nail, which Rankin "liked better" as it kept the early title sequence ([something] & [something]) going.