Christine Shannon

In the novel Sparkling Cyanide, Christine Shannon is a woman who was present at the restaurant Luxembourg, with a man named Pedro Morales, at the time George Barton died. Chief Inspector Kemp thought of her as "dumber than you'd believe possible except where money is concerned" and was certain she didn't see anything, but in the event she proved to be a fairly good witness.

Christine is variously described as a blonde with bleached hair, a gold-digger, with a certain shrewdness in her large baby-blue eyes. Her "dumbness" only extended to intellectual areas. Where horse sense and money was concerned, Christine had plenty of brain power.

Christine proved to be an unusually keen observer. She said that is because she was getting bored with Pedro's conversation about his Mexican business deals which she had "heard three times before". Nor is Pedro much to look at, so she let her eyes roam around.

Christine described the scene at Barton's table as "[s]tiff as stiff could be". Barton was nervous as "a cat on wires". The tall woman on his right was "as stiff as though she'd swallowed the poker" and the girl on his left was "just mad" because she did not get to sit next to a "nice-looking dark boy" who was opposite. The tall fair man next to her he looked "as though his tummy was out of order, ate his food as though he thought it would choke him". The woman next to him was doing her best, "she pegged away at him, but she looked rather as though she had the jumps herself."