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John Hart really wanted the dagger.

For years, the Crime Writers Association has awarded top writers one of those long, scary, scramble-your-brains knives that British Secret Service agents used during World War II.

Now, Hart has one. But his knife is encased in hard plastic.

Still, he says, the award is pretty cool.

This week in London, the 44-year-old Greensboro writer won the association’s Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller of the year. It’s for his book, “The Last Child,” which he wrote in his office off South Elm Street.

It’s about a 13-year-old, soda-loving boy who tries to find his abducted sister in small-town North Carolina . The judges called it an “ambitious piece of Southern gothic. A cracking and original story.’’

It’s Hart’s third novel since he quit his day job as a stockbroker four years ago. Last year, his second novel, “Down River,’’ won the Edgar Award for best mystery from the Mystery Writers of America .

Writing awards from both sides of the Atlantic.

Not bad. Not bad at all.