Because I'm interested in such things...

How did Bantam seem to lose the rights to SITKA for a time, which was published by Signet in the early 2000s?

Sitka was written in a time before Dad had settled completely at Bantam. They published a few of his books at the time but the majority were at Gold Medal.

Sitka was written for a movie studio, with certain story requirements, and they were considering turning it into a film. Then they backed off. I believe the publisher may have been their choice.

Later it was licensed to Bantam but then they dropped the ball. A few years went by before they got it back.

We were very lucky that we could pick up the Gold Medal and Ace books and cleanly move them to Bantam. Things don't always work out that well.