Going Public

Social butterfly Tracy Gilmartin agrees to write the ultimate kiss-and-tell story in Dobbin's ( Going Live ) entertaining novel. A beautiful airhead, Tracy is vaguely aware that she will have money problems when her husband leaves her for another man. Her bad news, however, presents a great opportunity for an ambitious reporter, Clayton Clapper, whom she inadvertently provides with a hot political story. Clapper proposes that Tracy produce a ``social history'' of Washington, D.C. Tracy tells herself she needs the money, and allows the salivating reporter to talk her into it. To Tracy, all her diaries amount to is fluff and puff. But most of her memories involve sleeping with men and women who have at one time or another occupied the front page of the Washington Post. With teasers for her book appearing in the Post and Spy magazine , her former lovers are petrified. Tracy insists she is simply relating silly tidbits. But Clapper's political story leads to banner headlines, and it is obvious that Tracy has been the source. To a KGB colonel, a senator, the First Lady, the President and a born-again Christian running for President, this spells disaster and leads to several outlandish attempts on Tracy's life. Despite an unoriginal epilogue and a suicide at odds with the lighthearted plot, this is a funny, fast-moving satirical romp. (Apr.)