Needle of suspicion

Came across "needle of suspicion" earlier this evening.

"Dan Brown has managed to point the needle of suspicion from one character to another skillfully."

It sounds familiar but... not really. Obviously it has something to do with deflecting suspicion from one to another.

Any ideas about origin?

This is evidently a blending of "point the finger of suspicion" which is an old and obvious metaphor, with the idea of a compass needle pointing north. The only question is whether it's a deliberate attempt to be clever, or just illiteracy. My money would be on the latter; this is an incompetent sentence from any point of view. Nobody points a compass needle; it points itself. And you can't point anything "from one character to another"; you can only point it AT one character AFTER another. (VSD)