John Toppin, a former principal of Moorestown’s William Allen Middle School and long-time Delran resident, has found a new passion writing investigative and historical fiction novels in his retirement. Fresh off of releasing his third book, “Little Girl Lost,” Toppin has started to write his fourth book, “Incident at the Chehalis River Bridge.”
Toppin begin his career as a seventh- and eighth-grade social studies teacher at William Allen Middle School. He eventually worked his way up to be the supervisor of the social studies department before becoming the assistant principal and, eventually, the principal. After 34 years as an educator, Toppin briefly retired before going to work at Bishop Eustace Prep School in Pennsauken for another 14 years. Once Toppin fully ended his career as an educator, he began to pursue a long-lost dream.
“I always thought about writing,” said Toppin. “I had a few newspaper articles that had interested me and I thought that they would make good stories. One of them was an article about a young lady that was found murdered. She was naked, except for a pair of socks, lying down on some church steps in South Philly. They couldn’t identify her, but the mysterious thing was that she was shot in the back of the head and the murder weapon was lying at the bottom of her feet. I started to think about all of the possibilities. It sounded like an organized hit.
“The second article was about a guy and his wife who owned a corner grocery store,” Toppin continued. “He had been robbed a few times so he went and bought a gun. One night he heard some noise in the store and he goes down with the gun to check it out. When he turns on the light, he finds out that it was his son robbing him, taking money out of the cash register. He knew it was his son, but he shot and killed him. I thought to myself what would cause a parent to kill their child?”
After having all of these thoughts in his head, Toppin went out to dinner with a friend, Wendy Frantz. She asked him what he was going to do in his retirement and he told her that he was thinking about writing a book. Delighted about the book idea, Frantz and Toppin collaborated on his first book and entitled it “The Girl in the Argyle Socks and the Boy with the Gold Nose Ring.”
“I can’t tip my hat enough to her,” said Toppin. “She really kept me going and forced me to finish the project.”
Toppin’s passion for writing continued to grow after completing his first book. He went on to create a historical fiction surrounding the Astor Place Riots of May 10, 1849, entitled “The Night Shakespeare Literally Killed the Audience.” He followed up his second book with a sequel to his first.
“My sister and a friend told me that I should do another Jack Bridge Mystery,” said Toppin. “Jack Bridge was a private investigator from the first book hired to find out who murdered the girl. So in ‘Little Girl Lost’ a high school girl gets hurt running track and her doctor puts her on opioids. She gets hooked and moves on to heroin. One day, a woman comes to Jack and says that her daughter is missing. Jack sets out to find her and runs into a biker gang and a bunch of wealthy Philadelphians who are involved in human trafficking.”
Toppin’s fourth book is currently in the works. This story will be set in 1919 in Centralia, Wash., and deal with the Armistice Day Riot, a violent incident between the American Legion and Industrial Workers of the World. All of Toppin’s books can be found and purchased on Amazon Books.
