4.5/5
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an advanced audio copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When the corn is waist high is about Solomon Lancaster, the local sheriff and also the priest at the local Catholic church. His small Indiana town is shaken to the core when someone is murdered in a particularly gruesome way... and then more and more bodies continue to show up. Father Lancaster finds himself in a weird place as he is trying to shepherd the town through this crisis, but also trying to help solve the mystery of this serial killer.

I was completely taken by surprise by this story more than once. I enjoyed being in Father Lancaster's head as he's trying to navigate this weird juxtaposition of his two vastly different roles. The mystery was incredibly intriguing-- as the bodies continued to show up, I found myself coming up with all kinds of scenarios of how these people could be linked to one another and what on earth could be motivating this killer.

Once we get to the big mid-twist of the book, I enjoyed how the tone shifts from this sort of light-hearted investigation into a supremely gritty look into a killer's motivations and methods. The drastic change in tone was SO compelling and I was just completely and incredibly impressed with the author's talent in making these two very different halves of the book feel cohesive and yet completely different from one another. And that ending????? I genuinely haven't stopped thinking about it for a week.

The narrator was amazing. He did a great job of following the author's lead-- the narration was different between the two halves of the book. I appreciated his talent in moving from the small town crime investigation into the twisted thoughts and minds of a killer. Highly recommend for anyone who loves a true crime type story!