Detroit, perched on the edge of Lake Huron, has become better known for the violence of its crimes than the new Fords and Cadillacs that roll off its assembly lines. Visitors to the Renaissance Centre downtown rarely stay after dark. The suburbs around Detroit have grown rapidly since the 1970s, as people continue to escape the city's many problems. Muggings and murder are expected on the evening news, in the city. But when the byline is the suburbs, people's heads turn.

Tina Biggars wasn't a refugee from downtown, she had moved back to the Farmington Hills area for graduate school to be closer to her family in Traverse City. She was a bright, pretty young woman doing research for a CDC project on the health of prostitutes. As it turned out, she would do more than research hookers, she would work as one, whilst maintaining her other life as a devout Catholic student dedicated to her long-time boyfriend Todd Nurnberger.

Ken Tranchida was a ne'er-do-well drifter who had perfected the art of the con. Despite his unsavoury lifestyle, he still wanted a traditional relationship. He met Tina through her escort service and the two began to meet off the clock. An argument over a loan for a car led to Tina's disappearance and the discovery of her double life, by her friends and family. It took a month for police to find Tina's body behind Tranchida's aunt's house. Tranchida confessed to killing her to "put her out of her financial misery". Finding Tina and punishing her killer still left the Biggars and all of Detroit with unanswered questions about how Miss Virtue could become Ms. Vice.