The thing is, it’s usually much easier to solve the mystery by getting a feel for Doyle’s tells than by trying to piece together whatever abstruse chain of deductions Holmes is going to use. Examples:
Watson is an incredibly good judge of character. If he thinks someone seems cold, that person is heartless. If he says someone seems shifty, they are guilty of something (although maybe not the crime under investigation).
The woman never did it. The only two exceptions to this are a story in which he clears one woman to implicate another (who is the only other possible suspect), and one in which an innocent woman is corrupted and manipulated by an evil man.
Just from those two rules you can usually figure out whodunit, at which point you can occupy yourself by figuring out how, a task made relatively simple by conservation of detail.
The thing is, it’s usually much easier to solve the mystery by getting a feel for Doyle’s tells than by trying to piece together whatever abstruse chain of deductions Holmes is going to use. Examples:
Watson is an incredibly good judge of character. If he thinks someone seems cold, that person is heartless. If he says someone seems shifty, they are guilty of something (although maybe not the crime under investigation).
The woman never did it. The only two exceptions to this are a story in which he clears one woman to implicate another (who is the only other possible suspect), and one in which an innocent woman is corrupted and manipulated by an evil man.
Just from those two rules you can usually figure out whodunit, at which point you can occupy yourself by figuring out how, a task made relatively simple by conservation of detail.