A Killing in Real Estate (1990)
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Robert Upton's Amos McGuffin mystery, published by Dutton in 1990, takes the San Francisco private eye to Manhattan. His former wife has taken their daughter to New York to break into the theater, and McGuffin accepts a thousand dollars a day from the real estate developer Victor Belmont, with the use of the city's best divorce lawyer, to find out who hired the bomber who blew himself up along with Belmont's Mercedes. (Open Library)
Watches
- Rolex watch
- Conrad Daniels, the lawyer whom Belmont describes as the man who makes sure there is no labor trouble on a construction job, receives McGuffin in his Park Avenue apartment. When he has heard enough about Laird Strauss, he asks for a number where he can reach the detective and glances at his Rolex, and the interview is over. He glances at it again in his East Fifty-ninth Street office before asking what McGuffin wants (p. 98). The maker is named; the model is not.
Source text: “Do you have a number where I can reach you?” the lawyer asked, glancing at his Rolex. The interview was done. (Robert Upton, A Killing in Real Estate, scan cataloged as Dutton, 1990, p. 47; Internet Archive scan OCR)
- Rolex watch
- Waiting to see Andre Hersh, the divorce lawyer Belmont has lent him, McGuffin watches the piranhas in the aquarium behind the receptionist. On the bottom of the tank lie a human skull and a gold Rolex encircling the bones of an arm. Hersh laughs that most people want to know whether the Rolex is real, and says both are (p. 126); later he jokes that the lawyer on the other side lives on unprepared lawyers, "the bones, the Rolex, the whole megilla" (p. 127). The watch is a display object in Hersh's office, not worn by anyone. The maker is named; the model is not.
Source text: Although the fish were dull, the things lying on the bottom of the tank were most curious — a human skull and a gold Rolex watch, encircling the ulna and radius bones of an arm. (Robert Upton, A Killing in Real Estate, scan cataloged as Dutton, 1990, p. 126; Internet Archive scan OCR)