Killer's Choice and Ghosts and Vespers

Three more rereads from Ed McBain.
"Killer's Choice" was an early one, the one where we meet Detective Cotton Hawes, who was supposed to take over as the "hero" of the series, since McBain's editor determined that women would not find a married man like Carella an appealing hero. He was an idiot, whoever he was. I like Hawes well enough, but Carella and Meyer are my favorites, and they are both married. Anyway, this one is about a woman named Annie Boone who is murdered, and the detectives have to figure out which one of her was killed in order to find the killer. See, Annie Boone was a different person to everyone who knew her: her ex-husband thought she was brilliant and vivacious and missed her dreadfully; her mother thought she was a dimwit; one boyfriend said she played billiards with the best of them and was really fun; another boyfriend thought she was a very refined lady who enjoyed ballet. In other words, a normal woman (at least, in my opinion. I like all sorts of seemingly unrelated past times--football, anyone?).
"Ghosts" I knew I had read before, but didn't really remember that well, because I didn't really like it. It was like a bad mix of "Law & Order" and the "X-Files"(which are wonderful when separate). Carella is investigating a murder of a man who writes about the supernatural, and the dead man's girlfriend is a medium. It was kind of silly.
"Vespers" is a really good one. A priest is murdered at his church, four blocks away from a Satan worshipping cult which ends up being tied into it in a very unexpected way. Detective Hal Willis (who I always kinda felt sorry for) is going through a personal crisis: his girlfriend, Marilyn, who was a prostitute in a former life and murdered her pimp to escape the life, stealing $2 million from him in the process, is being harassed by his cousin, who wants the money back. Marilyn doesn't completely confide in Hal, like a fool, she tries to protect him from any potential damage to his career. If I had a boyfriend who was a cop and some guys were coming after me, I would get a twenty-four hour guard on me. Well, I felt sorry for Marilyn, too. And the whole mystery of who killed the priest was great.