The Time of the Cricket (1995)

William D. Blankenship's thriller, a novel of mayhem in modern Tokyo as its jacket calls it, was published by Donald I. Fine; its copyright page reads 1995. Kay Williams comes to Tokyo for a client to find Turo Kajima's sword shop, and Cricket Kimura, a yakuza boss with a new Porsche, is sent by his patron, Yoshi Hasegawa, for a sword once owned by the Emperor Meiji, with a list of people to kill to follow. (Open Library)

Watches

Rolex watch: Kimura glances at his Rolex on his rounds: in the Azabu Juban, where he leaves a caged cricket on the floor of the Porsche and climbs to a loft on business he must make fast before Shinjuku (p. 25), while making a young underling apologize (p. 28), and outside the White Heat club, where he gives a girl fifteen minutes to settle down with Jimmy Sato before he goes in (p. 203). Hasegawa's gift of a solid gold Rolex to every member of a home-run hitter's family (p. 74) is a story told, not a watch in the scene. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: A glance at his Rolex told him he would have to make this fast, his important business for the day was in Shinjuku. (William D. Blankenship, The Time of the Cricket, scan cataloged as Donald I. Fine, 1994 (copyright 1995), p. 25; Internet Archive scan OCR)