His well-ordered universe had been turned upside down, and he had a dizzying glimpse of those mysteries at the edge of exist- ence which he had successfully ignored for most of his life.

The suburban-noir nightmare he tells in DERAILED (Warner, $23.95) taps into every law-abiding citizen's dread of making one rash mistake that could destroy his well-ordered universe - and of being found out.

In one of the most productive careers in music history, he surely wrote enough else to dilute the impact of the "Messiah" in a well-ordered musical universe.

When the man found that the witch Elaine was the source of the trouble, she sent him on to find out how Elaine had gotten into a well-ordered universe.

And this, our civic elite would tell us, constitutes a well-ordered universe.

IN a well-ordered musical universe, when a valued troupe was preparing to leave the scene, a worthy successor would be in the wings.

She stank, the whole ship stank, was acrawl with kifish vermin and gods knew what else, the whole clean, well-ordered universe was turned inside out and the vermin were the last, grotesque insult.

In a well-ordered universe, that would be a paradox and shouldn't be able to happen, everybody agrees.

In fact, Einstein noted that a well-ordered universe left no room for "causes of a divine nature."

Donn Downy, Globe and Mail - Wolfe violated most of the rules in his well-ordered universe, probably because of the scriptwriters' misguided desire to make the character more palpable.