The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf, $24)

Just in time for Halloween Cormac McCarthy has published a short, spooky novel that stands a very good chance of haunting your dreams. Best known for violent revisionist Westerns like Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy uses The Road to express a bleak futuristic vision that's filled with images of scorched earth, ashy gray skies and mutilated bodies (both dead and alive).

McCarthy never specifies the events that destroyed the world. All we know is that a father and son - both nameless - are travelling on foot through America, trying to reach the ocean. Food is scarce, and they must protect whatever spoils they do find against bands of marauders who will stop nothing short of rape, torture and cannibalism.

Other McCarthy books, like Blood Meridian, can be slow going due to dense language and inscrutable symbolism. Apart from a few rigorous passages The Road is a much easier read, with extensive passages of minimalistic dialogue.

For all its hellish imagery, this is a surprisingly tender book. The boy quakes with fear at each encroaching danger, but the father is always there to hold him and ensure him that they're "carrying the fire" for the "good guys" who they're bound to find sooner or later.

What makes The Road truly ominous and urgent is the father and son's often unspoken understanding that no amount of love and respectable deeds will keep death from napping at their heels.