Top-Notch Magazine, May 1, 1915

About this issue

This semi-monthly pulp magazine contains a complete novel, multiple novelettes, short stories, and serialized fiction. William Wallace Cook contributes the lead novel "The Fluctuating Package," centered on railroad and express service around an unusual parcel. Burt L. Standish offers "Shaming the Speed Limit," a novelette featuring swift action. "In the Jitney Class" by John D. Emerson concerns baseball and minstrel performers. The issue includes detective fiction—Edwin Balmer and William MacHarg's "Decidedly Odd" features Luther Tram, a wonder detective. Short stories range from newspaper intrigue to military adventure and collegiate humor, including Hugh McNeill's "Trained to a Fiddle" from the Humming Bird series and H. Hesketh Prichard's "Tart as the Terrible." Two serial novels continue: James French Dorrance's "As the Arrow to the Bow" about intercollegiate rowing, and Albert M. Treanor's "The House of Dread," a mystery set in Des Moines, Iowa.