Second Book in Hugh Cook's Oceans of Light Trilogy.
In Chalakanesia, where the presence of the metapsychic faultline makes for a certain amount of paranormal chaos, Heineman Jubiladilia campagins for the job of president. He finds himself living in interesting times: diving on a wreck to rescue air crash survivors, surviving a riot during the election campaign and, before he is done, facing the challenge of getting back inside his living body after he has inadvertently managed to go ghosting out of it. Alternative realities do not come more alternative than this!
Plot (Spoilers)
The main character is Heineman, brother of Atlanta and uncle of her baby Loki, both members of the Jubiladilia Family who specialize in diving using "adaptive skins".
Heineman has become a senator based on the deal arranged with Gorkindachina in West of Heaven, but now Heineman is running for President of Chalakanesia against the same Gorkindachina. Heineman's sister Panjalo left Gorkindachina and joined Cult of Orgy before the book began.
The book opens with the Zuzu Magore a skyship due to touchdown, however it crashes into the ocean due to problems with the power generating Omagulous Toad technology working near the metapsychic faultline.
Heineman and the Jubiladilia Family dive and save some of the crew.
Heineman and Gorkindachina meet to publicly have a debate however Heineman is ambushed by Gorkindachina publicly revealing Heineman's Grandfather Zinjanthrop's past sex crimes. Heineman's campaign collapses but he doesn't quit.
The research facility of La Lantis conducts an experiment involving Omagulous Toad's however it fails and causes a massive explosion. Heineman saves the day by swimming out to the wreck of the Zuzu Magore and dropping the Omagulous Toad over the continental shelf. In the explosion Gorkindachina is shunted, meaning he disappears.
First book - West of Heaven
Second book - East of Hell
Third book - North of Paradise
Hugh Cook's description of East of Hell:
In this book the family Jubiladilia suffers through two unwise experiments inflicted upon their powerless country by foreign interventionists.
The interventionists, intent on forcing popular democracy upon the archipelago of Chalakanesia, coerce the federal state of Islam Demaxus to hold presidential elections. Heineman Yakaskam Jubiladilia, a candidate in the elections, gets bruised up against the realities of this new-fangled "democracy" stuff, including the outing of a lurid family secret and the first-ever election riot in the city of Lexis.
Additionally, by making unwise experiments which relate to their flawed airship techology, experiments which have the potential to catastrophically destabilize local reality, the foreigners are putting the Jubiladilias and their entire community in danger of destruction.
As the book opens, we see the diving skills of the Jubiladilias brought into play as they strive to rescue survivors from an airship (in this case, very definitely a heavier-than-air ship) which has crashed and has sunk in local waters.
Though no great diver, Heineman finds himself forced to join his family's diving tradition. Reluctantly. But, in the end, heroically.
This book is part of a trilogy but is a self-contained novel in its own right, complete with a beginning, a middle and an end.