The Pachinko Woman (1999)

Henry Mynton's thriller, published by William Morrow in 1999, turns on Japan's pachinko parlors, a multibillion-dollar industry that the novel puts in North Korean hands. Helim Kim, a Korean businesswoman raised in Tokyo and living in Los Angeles, is the "Pachinko Woman" of American intelligence files: connected in three countries, manipulated by more than one Asian power and stalked by a hired assassin. (Open Library)

Watches

Seiko (unidentified model): Gunther Steig, a German assassin three months into a contract in Japan whose targets have all been Koreans, studies a Tokyo pachinko parlor before his next job. He takes his winnings at the gift corner as prizes, a bottle of brandy, a Seiko watch and cigarettes, handed over in a plain plastic bag with a polite bow; the narration explains that prizes, exchanged for cash at a shop the parlor does not own, are what keeps pachinko technically clear of gambling. He walks out with the bag under his arm to find the alley behind the manager's office. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: He took his winnings to the gift corner. Pointed at the Rimy Martin brandy and a Seiko watch. Plus cigarettes. They were handed to him in a plain plastic bag with a polite bow. (Henry Mynton, The Pachinko Woman, scan cataloged as William Morrow, 1999, p. 9, as the OCR prints it, including its reading "Rimy Martin" for the brandy; Internet Archive scan OCR)