LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR
by JUDITH ROSSNER
284 pages. Simon & Schuster. $7.95.
This novel may be the literary sleeper of the summer. It is assaulting the bestseller lists and has been sold to the paperbacks for $300,000 and to the movies for $225,000. Mr. Goodbar richly deserves its success; it is a rare kind of book: both a compelling "page turner" and a superior roman à clef.
Five years ago, a young kindergarten teacher was murdered in her apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Her death seemed to be another pitiful urban statistic: a woman...