I am currently reading a popular mystery novel. It's not bad overall, but the author has an annoying method of achieving a cheap sort of suspense. It's like a perversion of dramatic irony. Instead of the reader knowing something that the character doesn't know, a character knows or does something, and the author coyly alludes to it but smugly waits to inform the reader until a later chapter. I was wondering if there is a specific term for this literary device, which achieves a sort of cliffhanger effect but at the expense of distancing the reader from the action. (Other than irritating, that is))