City of Gold (1992)

Len Deighton's novel, published in 1992, is set in Cairo in 1942, a city ruled by Egyptian royalty and occupied by the British army, where Rommel is receiving startlingly complete intelligence about the forces facing him. Captain Bert Cutler, late of the Glasgow police, is brought to Egypt to find the spy, among a cast the jacket fills out with an aristocratic young woman, an aging Tsarist prince, a British nurse, an arms dealer and a reckless desert adventurer; Deighton's historical notes set out the real leak behind the plot. (Open Library)

Watches

Longines watch: In January 1942, in the El Birkeh district of brothels, the woman the soldiers call Lady Fitz, a fifty-year-old Greek dentist who arrived in Cairo penniless in 1939 and now runs her establishment with the managerial skill of a Swiss hotelier, looks at her watch while two regulars, Sergeants Smith and Percy, have been upstairs for almost an hour. The expensive Longines is one of her few concessions to luxury beside simply combed hair, minimal makeup, a plain cotton dress and flat shoes from the souk. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: She looked at her watch. The expensive Longines wrist watch was one of her few concessions to luxury, for her hair was simply combed, her makeup minimal, her dark blue cotton dress simple, and her flat-heeled shoes purchased in the souk. (Len Deighton, City of Gold, scan cataloged as HarperCollins, 1992, p. 24; Internet Archive scan OCR)