Strike for a Kingdom — Menna Gallie

First published in 1959, this novel is set in the fictional valleys town of Cilhendre at the time of the 1926 miners' strike. August arrives and the village carnival is going ahead. In the heightened carnival atmosphere, more sinister undertones are revealed when the corpse of the hated mine manager is discovered. The secrets and tensions of a close-knit community are exposed, and loyalties are pushed to their extremes. When it was originally released, it was well-received as an outstanding detective story and a poet's novel.