..purely cynical product placement, but it does smack of faux 'sophistication' and lazy writing - a way of conveying a certain degree of connoisseurship without having to establish any in the character itself.
It also ages novels, or at minimum securely locks them into a timeframe. I don't enjoy Fleming's novels and I'm unlikely to ever read any Patricia Cornwall, but the effect is the same.
As for watches in books..off the top of my head:
A passage in Carter beats the Devil, in which the author G D Gold describes (if I recall correctly) a pocket chronograph - a description straight out of an internet search, painful if you know what he's on about and inappropriately detailed if you don't (see above for faux sophistication and lazy writing/editing).
The other is Nautilus 90 North by William R Anderson. Anderson was the commander of the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, on Operation Sunshine - a journey under the ice to the North Pole. In the first couple of pages Anderson receives a watch as a gift for his service prior to commanding the Nautilus.
And finally, surely the almost unreadable American Psycho would have some over blown reference to a watch brand, it mentions everything else in excruciating detail - I know that's the point, but it's still bad.
This message has been edited by BDLJ on 2011-10-13 16:28:32