Reign of Secrets by James P Cain
Book and Author Information + an Excerpt!
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Reign of Secrets
When the Prince of Denmark is murdered in the Florida Keys, an unlikely duo of American and Irish diplomats in Copenhagen becomes embroiled in a deadly game of espionage, ancient conspiracies and high stakes diplomacy as they confront one of the West’s most dangerous enemies. In Reign of Secrets, Colonel Whit Ransom and Irish attaché Aisling Kelly race across Europe to stop the Russian President and his assassins as they chase the Danish Crown’s most guarded treasure, a thousand-year-old secret that could threaten the royal houses of Europe and return the Russian empire to glory.
In Reign of Secrets, diplomacy meets danger, and the past may be the deadliest weapon of all.
Historical Fiction Thriller
Date Published: 12/10/2025
Publisher: Manhattan Book Group
“A gripping, timely story… that masterfully blends that warrior ethos with today’s geopolitical reality, as Whit Ransom confronts Vladimir Putin’s ruthless ambition to resurrect an empire.” —Lt. Col. James Reese (Ret.), US Army Delta Force Operator
“Through this historical thriller, Reign of Secrets offers a captivating glimpse into the essence of what it means to follow in the footsteps of legends…” —Morten Andersen, “The Great Dane”, Member, NFL Hall of Fame
“A masterfully crafted tale that explores how the West’s adversaries subtly challenge the narratives of history – reshaping symbols, exploiting weaknesses, reframing legacies, and testing the resilience of democratic values and the international order.” —Lt. General Ed Cardon (Ret.), former Commander, US Army Cyber Command
To purchase your copy of Reign of Secrets, click the following link: Amazon
Read Excerpts from Reign of Secrets
3. Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark:
Her body had lain undisturbed in its royal crypt for almost a century; but when the man in the front row discovered the letter sewn in the lining of her murdered granddaughter’s nightgown, he knew the long dead Empress had to return to Russia, to fulfill his destiny, and change the course of history.
Whit Ransom studied that man. From his seat in the balcony of Roskilde Cathedral he had a clear view of the back of the man’s bald head, square shoulders, and dark blue suit. The skill of observing small details had been part of his Delta Force training. The bald man seemed a bit smaller in stature than media photos suggested. And the man clearly wasn’t paying attention to the homily the bishop was delivering. Instead, he was glancing around the interior of the cathedral, studying the architecture, the multiple monuments, and the recesses in the walls as if he were looking for something. What?
On one side of the aisle sat the royal family of Denmark, headed by Her Majesty the Queen. On the other side of the aisle, in seats surrounding the bald man, the political leadership of Denmark sat stoically. Ransom scrutinized the face of Prime Minister Ida Samuelsen for any sign of what she was thinking as she sat next to the man. But the Prime Minister sat unmoving, betraying no discomfort except for one brief instant when Ransom saw her eyes dart to the left, at the man who most of her counterparts considered the most dangerous person in the world, a man who had recently brought Europe to the brink of an unthinkable war, a man who tonight would be flying back to Moscow to resume his duties as the President of Russia. …
…What Ransom was unaware of, what only the man in the front row knew of, was the tattered letter sewn in the hem of the nightgown of the nineteen-year-old Grand Duchess Maria; a letter from Maria’s grandmother to Maria’s father. And other than the man in the front row, neither Whit Ransom nor the Queen of Denmark nor anyone else present in the cathedral that afternoon could have guessed the contents of that letter, or the secret buried therein, a secret the man in the front row was determined to unravel. A secret that would allow the new Russian empire to rule all of Europe, with him on the throne.
4. The Kremlin, Moscow
The president of Russia sat alone in his office. He reached inside his left coat pocket and removed the letter he had now read at least a hundred times. The message, sewn in the lining of the undercoat of Czar Nicholas II’s youngest daughter, must have reached the czar in exile, sometime in 1917, before the Bolsheviks seized power and captured Nicholas and his family. The letter had been discovered when the children’s bodies were being prepared for reburial in the cathedral in St. Petersburg two years before. Its message, written from the czar’s mother and intended for her son, had become an obsession. It was more than a message of hope from a mother to a son. It was a message promising eternal empire based on a secret known only to her family. He had hoped that bringing the mother’s body back to Russia would provide more clues, but so far the examination of the casket of Empress Maria Feodorovna, who the Danes called
Dagmar had yielded nothing. Hopefully the team from Cuba would provide more information. They should be reporting in soon. He unfolded the three yellowed pages and once again read the faded, cryptic message. What secret were you trying to get to your son, Empress?
5. U.S. Embassy Copenhangen, 8:00 am
The Bubble was large enough to hold the embassy’s senior staff, who were all assembled and stood when Arthur entered. Sanders introduced the dozen men and women, all of them Americans, in rapid order without regard for seniority. Like Conrad Arthur, Ransom had met a few of them earlier, but it was the first time he had laid eyes on a couple of them, the staff from the National Security Agency and Central Intelligence Agency in particular. Following the brief introductions, Sanders got to the point.
“Sir, we have a situation. The President is waiting for your call.”
6.Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen, 5:45 pm
Niels Sørensen watched as the military escort removed the flag-draped coffin from the cargo bay of the Citation CJ4. The Crown Prince was to his left, huddled under an umbrella with the crown princess. They had agreed that the arrival of Prince Axel’s body should be a private affair, no media, no cameras. The absence of an audience left the royals free to exhibit their emotion, and Sørensen understood the silent tears flowing down the face of the Crown Princess. He would take charge of the body and ensure that a full autopsy was conducted. The results of the American and Danish autopsies would then be compared. If the Ambassador’s information was accurate, that Axel’s attackers had drugged him, that was a real problem. If those drugs were designed to elicit information, and if before he died, Prince Axel had shared the information he and his predecessors had devoted their lives through the centuries to protecting, all could be lost. And that was not only a threat to the existence of the royal family, it could shatter the stability of the world order.
7.Fredensborg Palace, the Library, 5:45 pm
“The American ambassador asked me if the family has any enemies,” said the crown prince.
Beck stood and began pacing. “We have had this same discussion for years. If we bring the Americans in, we cannot trust that the truth will stay with us. Besides, the enemy could be anyone, including the Americans.”
The lord chamberlain spoke next. “Two centuries ago, at least one of America’s leaders knew of, or at least suspected, our secret—and they understood and complied with our wish for silence on the matter.”
“True,” replied Beck, “but the leadership of America at its founding is not the leadership of today. We cannot be certain that America today would protect and respect a secret that has been in this family for a thousand years.”
“As insensitive as this may sound,” said the Crown Prince, “let’s hope that my brother’s heart seized up before his interrogators could get that secret out of him.
8. Trinity College, Dublin, 12:19 pm
None of the three spoke as the curator continued to turn pages. It occurred to Ransom that he had run out of adjectives to describe the artistic beauty in front of him. As the curator was beginning to turn the eleventh page, Ransom held up his hand for her to pause.
“Do you know anything about that symbol?” he asked, pointing to the marking in the left margin that he had seen in the Stag’s Head. McKinsey moved closer to look through the magnifier.
“It seems a bit out of place, there in the margin by itself,” Ransom said. “It looks like the right half of a cross with a spiderweb attached to the arm.”
“Or like something I might have drawn as a kid when I was playing ‘hangman,’” said
Morgan, now peering over McKinsey’s shoulder.
“No, I don’t personally know anything about that mark” McKinsey replied, “but there has been extensive scholarly work done on each folio of the Book, so I will see if I can find anything about it. I will make a note of it, on folio 301r.”
As the three carefully perused the remaining pages of John’s gospel, Ransom noticed that the Book ended before the completion of the gospel’s twenty-one chapters.
He looked at Rochel McKinsey. “Where is the ending?”
“When the Book was stolen by Vikings a thousand years ago, the thieves not only ripped off the Book’s jeweled cover, but they also removed several pages.”
“So, there are pages from John’s gospel that are missing?” Ransom asked.
“Yes. For some reason the last folio page from John’s gospel was removed a thousand years ago. For what reason, we have never known.”
9. Konstantinovsky Palace, St. Petersburg, 2:10 am local time
Vladimir Putin fingered the letter, turning it over and over in his hand. The party committee leader in Crimea was right to have sent it directly to him a year earlier when the bodies of the remaining two Romanov children, Grand Duchess Maria and the Czar’s only son,
Alexei, had been finally autopsied. The bodies had been discovered in 2007 in the forest outside Yekaterinburg. The letter, bearing the date November 21, 1917, had been sewn into the fabric of the nightclothes of Grand Duchess Maria, who would have been nineteen when she was murdered. For the one hundredth time, Putin unfolded the letter and read its contents: a message from a mother to a son, a son who she was convinced would return to reclaim a throne.
“My Dearest Nicky: As I write this letter, I no longer hear the guns. But I hear that the guns have come for you and that they have taken you from the palace. You know that my thoughts and prayers never leave you. I think of you day and night and sometimes feel so sick at heart that I believe I cannot bear it any longer. But God is merciful. He will give us strength for this terrible ordeal. As for me, I am not fearful of what is to come. I know that our family will survive and that you will soon return to rule our people. Nicky, should the day come that you need to call upon it, you need to know that our family in Denmark harbors a secret, not a terrible secret, as is harbored by so many of the royal families of Europe, but a magnificent and ancient secret, in our family for a thousand years, as described by the Son of Thor.”
Putin looked up from the letter and pondered how much they had learned since his
Patriarch, Ilya Mikhailov, had connected the reference to the “Son of Thor” with the Gospel of John in Dublin’s Trinity Library. Putin had puzzled over that reference for weeks, knowing that the empress’s Viking ancestors believed in many gods and goddesses, the three primary deities being Odin, Thor, and Frey. Thor was Odin’s son and the most popular god who protected humans from evil. But the patriarch had thought the reference to “Son of Thor” was odd, because in Viking lore Thor was not known to have had sons. The patriarch knew that Thor’s name in Viking lore meant “thunder,” and to Vikings the sound of thunder was caused by the god’s chariot riding across the sky. So the patriarch reasoned that Dagmar’s reference must have been a clue to something else. Translating Dagmar’s reference as “Son of Thunder,” Mikhailov immediately recognized the reference to the New Testament and the Apostle John, who the early church nicknamed the “Son of Thunder.” The patriarch knew that the most well-known copy of the Gospel of John had existed “for a thousand years,” as the letter referenced, and it was in Dublin, within the Book of Kells.
Putin returned to reading the letter. “With the secret lies the key to your return to the throne, and indeed to ensuring Russia’s predominance among the empires of the world. To call upon it, you need only come to me. Or if I am gone, then to your cousin on the Danish throne, to the home where we enjoyed such wonderful Christmases in years past. My thoughts are with you always, my dear Nicky, just as the arms of God are wrapped around you. With Love, Mama.”
He put the letter down. “I know we are close, Empress. I know we are close, and that the secret you tried to share with your son will soon be mine.”
Reign of Secrets Author James P. Cain
James P. Cain’s remarkable career has spanned the fields of law, business, politics, sports and international diplomacy. From volunteering on Ronald Reagan’s first Presidential campaign, being featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes at the age of 27, to becoming a partner in an international law firm, serving as President of the NHL Carolina Hurricanes, and later as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, Ambassador Cain has operated at the highest levels of leadership and public service for over five decades.
A personal encounter with Islamic terrorism in 2016 became the catalyst for writing Reign of Secrets.
Reign of Secrets is the first in a series of Whit Ransom novels.
His first book, The American, written during the last few months of his diplomatic service, was a Bestseller in Denmark.
Ambassador Cain and his family live in North Carolina.
To learn more about James, click the following link: Website
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February 9 – RABT Book Tours – Kick Off
February 10 – Books 1987 – Spotlight
February 11 – The Faerie Review – Spotlight
February 12 – Always Reading – Excerpt
February 13 – My Bookmarked Reads – Spotlight
February 15 – Lisa’s Reading – Excerpt
February 16 – Tea Time and Books – Spotlight
February 17 – Momma and Her Stories – Excerpt
February 18 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – Excerpt
February 19 – Iron Canuck Reviews – Excerpt
February 20 – Nana’s Book Reviews – Spotlight
February 21 – Book Corner News and Reviews – Spotlight*
February 23 – Sarandipity’s – Interview
February 24 – Texas Book Nook – Review
February 25 – Crossroad Reviews – Spotlight
February 26 – Novel News Network – Review
February 27 – The Avid Reader – Interview
March 2 – The Mystery of Writing – Excerpt
March 3 – Mystic Wanders Journey – Spotlight
March 4 – On a Reading Bender – Review
March 5 – The Indie Express – Review
March 6 – Liliyana Shadowlyn – Spotlight
March 7 – RABT Reviews – Wrap Up
