# The Last Circle *The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal* is a nonfiction investigative book by Cheri Seymour, published in 2010 by Trine Day. Built on roughly eighteen years of research, it is the most substantial book-length attempt to continue and document [[Danny Casolaro]]'s [[The Octopus]] investigation after his 1991 death. ## Overview Seymour first circulated an earlier version of the work online under the pen name "Carol Marshall" before publishing the print book under her own name; she had previously written *Committee of the States: Inside the Radical Right* and worked as a freelance journalist and private investigator. The book reconstructs the alleged theft of the [[PROMIS]] software (the [[Inslaw]] affair) and frames it as cover for narcotics trafficking, money laundering, arms sales, and espionage, tracing the network toward organized crime, the Cali cartel, and the Justice Department. ## Epistemic status The book's existence, authorship, and contents are established; its central thesis -- a coordinated criminal "Octopus" network -- is the disputed conspiracy claim, not established fact. It is best treated as a primary secondary source for the frame rather than as proof of it. ## See also - [[The Octopus]] - [[Danny Casolaro]] - [[PROMIS]] - [[Inslaw]]