Rod Moody-Corbett

The title of Michael Eddy’s smart, sprawling, and very funny first novel refers to a jewel. Plucked from a ten-year-old maharaja during the British annexation of Punjab, couriered to England by Lord Dalhousie — whose father founded the Nova Scotia university — the Koh‑i‑Noor eventually worms its way inside the cross pattée of various crowns made for British…

Early in David Bergen’s Days of Feasting and Rejoicing, a murderer-to‑be rehearses her metamorphosis. The American expat Esther Maile is visiting Bali with Christine, a Canadian with whom she shares a duplex in Thailand. One evening, while her friend is out dancing, Esther, who dreams of inhabiting another self, “a different body,” steps into her underwear: “Very…