Shooting in the Dark (1984)

Carolyn Hougan's first novel, copyright 1984 and read here in the Headline paperback first published in Great Britain in 1991, follows Claire Brooks, who answers her husband's announcement that their marriage is over by running away and ends up in Amsterdam. The city of the early 1980s is one of civil unrest, and a cabal of Western intelligence figures called the Circle Group is gathering there, intent on an assassination. (Open Library)

Watches

Seiko (unidentified model): Drunk, soaked by the rain and, in her own words, temporarily deranged, Claire is taken up to John Stenner's apartment in Amsterdam, where she tells him that her husband left her out of the blue after seven years. Asked when, she reads the calendar of her Seiko, a present from that husband, Jeff, to count the four days, and is not sure what day it is on this side of the Atlantic. The maker is named; the model is not, beyond its calendar.

Source text: “Four days ago.” She glanced at the calendar of her Seiko watch. A present from Jeff. (Carolyn Hougan, Shooting in the Dark, scan cataloged as Headline, 1991, p. 90; Internet Archive scan OCR)