Every private telegram sent across East Texas passes through Victor Ashford’s copper lines—and every secret worth money, power, or blackmail ends up in his hands. Clara Burrell has fought armies, courts, and land trusts, but this enemy has built his empire from words no one knew he was reading.
When a threatened magistrate sends a desperate letter to the Slash B, Clara uncovers a network hidden inside the Continental Wire Company. Ashford’s operators secretly copy private correspondence at relay stations across the state, forwarding cattle deals, court business, land negotiations, and political secrets to a fortified exchange in Dallas. With enough information, Ashford can control judges and commissioners without filing a fraudulent deed or firing a single shot.
Destroying one relay station will accomplish nothing, and attacking innocent operators would only turn the law against the ranch. Instead, Clara, Arthur Murphy, Tom Caldwell, and Mateo Reyes begin feeding carefully constructed lies into the network, forcing Ashford’s enforcers to chase false shipments and invented witnesses while the Slash B crew searches for the vulnerable point inside his sprawling system.
Their deception can buy only so much time. Ashford still holds months of intercepted correspondence, his blackmail targets are beginning to fall, and his four-story Dallas exchange stands behind iron, armed guards, and legal protection. To break the copper web, Clara must enter the center of the operation, confront a man who believes information makes him untouchable, and sever the lines carrying his influence across the state.
Enter The Copper Web, the twentieth installment in the series, where the battlefield stretches across hundreds of miles of telegraph wire and Clara Burrell must defeat an enemy who can turn a private word into a weapon before his network closes around everyone the Slash B has fought to protect.
Genre: Western
When a threatened magistrate sends a desperate letter to the Slash B, Clara uncovers a network hidden inside the Continental Wire Company. Ashford’s operators secretly copy private correspondence at relay stations across the state, forwarding cattle deals, court business, land negotiations, and political secrets to a fortified exchange in Dallas. With enough information, Ashford can control judges and commissioners without filing a fraudulent deed or firing a single shot.
Destroying one relay station will accomplish nothing, and attacking innocent operators would only turn the law against the ranch. Instead, Clara, Arthur Murphy, Tom Caldwell, and Mateo Reyes begin feeding carefully constructed lies into the network, forcing Ashford’s enforcers to chase false shipments and invented witnesses while the Slash B crew searches for the vulnerable point inside his sprawling system.
Their deception can buy only so much time. Ashford still holds months of intercepted correspondence, his blackmail targets are beginning to fall, and his four-story Dallas exchange stands behind iron, armed guards, and legal protection. To break the copper web, Clara must enter the center of the operation, confront a man who believes information makes him untouchable, and sever the lines carrying his influence across the state.
Enter The Copper Web, the twentieth installment in the series, where the battlefield stretches across hundreds of miles of telegraph wire and Clara Burrell must defeat an enemy who can turn a private word into a weapon before his network closes around everyone the Slash B has fought to protect.
Genre: Western
Used availability for Robert Hanlon's Texas 1866: The Copper Web