Syndicate Books to publish GBH and entire Ted Lewis catalog

I receive a lot of press releases and this one immediately caught my attention, that a new publisher would be publishing the complete writings of Ted Lewis. Of course the Jack Carter books are named by title in the release but I wanted to know something else, something I'm sure others are thinking. Would GBH be coming back in to print? GBH is a long out of print crime novel that commands high prices on the secondary market. Also, a lot of crime fiction fans want to read it. I asked Paul Oliver about GBH, he told me that GBH would be published as a hardcover in Spring 2015 and will be the culmination of the project. All of the Lewis books will be available as ebooks too. 

A quick look at the Syndicate Books website tells us that:

Syndicate books is a new publishing company that specializes in restoring to print & digital availability important works of crime & mystery fiction.

(Emphasis is mine)

On Facebook and Twitter I've often talked about out of print authors, Newton Thornburg and Shane Stevens come to mind, and I hope that Syndicate Books is around for a long time to ensure that these (fingers crossed) forgotten books and authors, and others, find a new audience today. It's a worthwhile endeavor. I'm excited for the Ted Lewis books and I'm excited to see what future projects will be.

Below is the full press release:

New York, NY, March 8^th, 2014—Syndicate Books, a recently incorporated crime and mystery fiction publisher based in Brooklyn, New York, announced a distribution agreement with the award-winning independent publishing house Soho Press. The agreement will see select print and digital titles from Syndicate distributed via Soho Press’s pre-existing relationship with Random House Publishers Services. These titles will be distributed under the imprint name Soho Syndicate.

Syndicate’s lead project is the publication of the complete writings of the late Ted Lewis, author of nine novels, several of which are cited as among crime fiction’s most influential.  A few of Lewis’s most important works have never before been published in North America. Syndicate’s lead title, which publishes in September, is Lewis’ best known work, Get Carter, a book which has been adapted to film three times, most famously by Mike Hodges in 1971 and starring Michael Caine as the protagonist, Jack Carter. Hodges has written a special Foreword for the Syndicate edition.

The two other Lewis novels featuring Jack Carter also publish this fall. The third novel, Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon, has never before been published in North America while the second, Jack Carter’s Law, has been out of print for nearly 40 years. The rest of Lewis’s novels will be published digitally, emphasizing Syndicate’s hybrid approach.

Paul Oliver, publisher at Syndicate Books, also happens to be the director of marketing and publicity for Soho Press. Oliver has no plans on leaving Soho because of the launch of Syndicate Books.

Oliver, a 15-year veteran of the book industry, sees Syndicate as the natural progression of his career. Prior to working in publishing he co-owned a new and used bookstore in the Philadelphia area for eight years and worked for Barnes & Noble before that.

Syndicate hopes to announce another set of properties in the coming months.