When a small bear from Darkest Peru first arrived at Paddington Station in 1958, no one would have predicted that he would become one of the most well-loved of celebrity bears. Now, with his 50th Anniversary fast approaching, his publishers are planning a special celebration.

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The March Mystery Madness showdown has now reached its third week. During the last round, 48 books were voted off, leaving 16 behind to duke it out over the coming three weeks....

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As you may already know, we were pretty excited when we found out about March Mystery Madness last week. In fact, after a quick flurry of email conversations, we wound up sponsoring it.

With 64 of the best mystery and thriller novels pitted against each other in a six week competition, the first week of polling is done:

Narrow upsets, crushing defeats and last-second comebacks were all the rage. Blockbuster author Philip Margolin put up a fight, slashing his way to a narrow defeat against Andrew Taylor's Fallen Angel. Taylor now takes on Karin Slaughter, who squeaked out a narrow victory of her own over the beloved Louis Bayard and his The Pale Blue Eye. Will these close victories serve as inspiration or will fans of each author be satisfied just to be in the second round?

You can find the full list of 32 first-round winners here.

Don't forget to go vote for your favourites this week- it could mean a free library of 65 excellent books.

You can find out more about the books here.

HarperCollins Canada has launched a blog/contest called March Mystery Madness:

We're hoping that everyone finds March Mystery Madness blog worthy. It's a massive, really fun online event we're running over the next six weeks: 64 books, 4 conferences, tonnes of "games," and one ultimate winner. Essentially, it's the NCAA basketball tournament only with mystery books.

Battling mystery titles, hype, games and the chance to win 65 great mystery novels. What's not to love?

Link to March Mystery Madness

Thanks, Ragdoll