At the center of the story is Luke Payne, a retired Navy Aviation Rescue Swimmer and Ocean Beach native whose quiet life at a Liberty Station art studio is shattered by a global cyber conflict. The plot jets from Mumbai to Shanghai and Washington, D.C., yet returns home for a high-stakes confrontation aboard the USS Midway and a dramatic North County rescue in San Pasqual Valley - a globe-trotting arc told with distinctly local heartbeat.
"San Diego has always been part of my story," James says, framing the novel as both thriller and love letter to the neighborhoods that raised him.
On a personal note: SanDiegoVille exists in part because of Ron. Years ago, I wrote restaurant pieces for his Wine & Dine San Diego online platform, and he showed me how to run the back end of the website, which led me to eventually launch this publication. That connection only heightens the pleasure of seeing him channel a lifetime of reporting, tech curiosity, and San Diego pride into fiction.
James’s resume helps explain the novel’s real-world texture. A U.S. Navy veteran and digital news pioneer, he managed the Union-Tribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com for nine years, helped launch the San Diego News Network, and later edited San Diego Uptown News - all while racking up journalism honors, including an Online News Association first-place award in 2004. Today he publishes Wine Dine & Travel Magazine with his wife, Mary.
His roots run even deeper through the James Gang - the family graphics and printing business that shaped Ocean Beach culture for decades, from holiday parades to the Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off. The shop’s story is inseparable from OB’s civic fabric, and that sense of community service echoes through the novel’s local scenes and characters.
"Quantum Deception" also taps into James's early writing on emerging tech—he co-authored a 1994 textbook that anticipated the internet’s rise - and his view that AI now stands at a similar inflection point. That blend of experience gives the book a grounded feel as it navigates cyber warfare, intelligence tradecraft, and the moral gray zones between them.
Local readers will recognize familiar haunts stitched into the narrative, including Hodad’s, Pacific Shores, Balboa Park, and the flight deck of the Midway. It’s the rare techno-thriller that reads as a San Diego novel first, global chase second, with Point Loma and OB treated as more than scenery - they’re home turf with history.
Early reader reactions lean into the book's brisk pacing and clean-lined storytelling, noting how it delivers suspense without gratuitous shock tactics. That restraint feels true to James’s news sensibilities, letting tension ride on stakes, setting, and character rather than gimmickry.
"Quantum Deception" launches the Luke Payne series, with a follow-up, "The Savannah Code," slated for 2026. For now, this first installment stands as a tribute to the city that formed its author - proof that San Diego can anchor a high-tech thriller without losing the salt air, neighborhood lore, and civic spirit that make it unmistakably ours.
"Quantum Deception" by Ron James is available now in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle on Amazon.
On a personal note: SanDiegoVille exists in part because of Ron. Years ago, I wrote restaurant pieces for his Wine & Dine San Diego online platform, and he showed me how to run the back end of the website, which led me to eventually launch this publication. That connection only heightens the pleasure of seeing him channel a lifetime of reporting, tech curiosity, and San Diego pride into fiction.
James’s resume helps explain the novel’s real-world texture. A U.S. Navy veteran and digital news pioneer, he managed the Union-Tribune’s SignOnSanDiego.com for nine years, helped launch the San Diego News Network, and later edited San Diego Uptown News - all while racking up journalism honors, including an Online News Association first-place award in 2004. Today he publishes Wine Dine & Travel Magazine with his wife, Mary.
His roots run even deeper through the James Gang - the family graphics and printing business that shaped Ocean Beach culture for decades, from holiday parades to the Street Fair & Chili Cook-Off. The shop’s story is inseparable from OB’s civic fabric, and that sense of community service echoes through the novel’s local scenes and characters.
"Quantum Deception" also taps into James's early writing on emerging tech—he co-authored a 1994 textbook that anticipated the internet’s rise - and his view that AI now stands at a similar inflection point. That blend of experience gives the book a grounded feel as it navigates cyber warfare, intelligence tradecraft, and the moral gray zones between them.
Local readers will recognize familiar haunts stitched into the narrative, including Hodad’s, Pacific Shores, Balboa Park, and the flight deck of the Midway. It’s the rare techno-thriller that reads as a San Diego novel first, global chase second, with Point Loma and OB treated as more than scenery - they’re home turf with history.
Early reader reactions lean into the book's brisk pacing and clean-lined storytelling, noting how it delivers suspense without gratuitous shock tactics. That restraint feels true to James’s news sensibilities, letting tension ride on stakes, setting, and character rather than gimmickry.
"Quantum Deception" launches the Luke Payne series, with a follow-up, "The Savannah Code," slated for 2026. For now, this first installment stands as a tribute to the city that formed its author - proof that San Diego can anchor a high-tech thriller without losing the salt air, neighborhood lore, and civic spirit that make it unmistakably ours.
"Quantum Deception" by Ron James is available now in paperback, hardcover, and Kindle on Amazon.
