As major players in the musical beds tug of war, The Terrible Twins needed an occupation that would allow them to appear and disappear from the stage, and the publication schedule of the local paper worked nicely.
They needed to work together, and regular shift work, with its week by week schedule didn't quite fit. The Twins journalistic role could have added another plot line to the developing intrigue.
While that didn't turn up this tome, it's always a possibility in a sequel.
It always helps to have a semi-domesticated journo hanging around a fictional environment. Two would be even better. make them female, with ataste for the high life and the possibilities open up further.
The reader may also find an obvious model for D’Artagnan, who I see as the epitome of the temperamental and highly opinionated French chef.
Since he’s working in a country pub, the guy’s probably not going to be a real chef, and in my reading of the situation would probably try to make up for a lack of formal qualifications by insisting that there was a particular way in which things should be done.
That doctrinaire character trait that would bring him into frequent conflict with an assertive supervisor with her own version of those issues.
Given a French chef and three apprentices in the kitchen the Three Musketeer references are obvious.
There’s a fairly obvious real-life model for Gilhooley, though he never, to the best of my knowledge, mastered the art of computer programming. His wife was the long-suffering almost diametrical opposite of the character who appears here as The Iron Maiden. That character needed to be a shift worker so Gilhooley could slip surreptitiously back into town in daylight hours without fear of being detected.