What A View | Murder, corruption and a nagging cold case in HBO’s Trinity of Shadows, Taiwan-set police drama with a realistic tone

Treachery is seeping into the Taiwanese police force in Trinity of Shadows (HBO and HBO Go), with murder, corruption, the sex trade and powerful enemies conspiring to make the ranks of the CID an unhappy place.

Perennially grumpy detective sergeant Hsu Tze-wei (played by Sandrine Pinna) is haunted by an unspoken child­hood trauma and troubled by injuries sustained in a previous investigation – which may turn out to be a notorious cold case from three years earlier, now back and threatening to bring the department down.

City councillor Yang Chi-hsiao (Kaiser Chuang), on a mission to expose shady police practices, is up for re-election and cuts a popular figure with the public – until, that is, his own links to the same case begin to emerge. The third part of the trinity, meanwhile, is inexperienced officer Chen Chia-hao (Liu Kuan-ting), whose somewhat deliberately gormless expressions must be concealing secrets potentially damaging to him and the force.

This 15-episode, HBO Asia Original series feels consistently realistic in tone and appearance, its “street” vibe lent credibility by scenes showing raids on drug-powered parties, suspects being beaten up and the grim life and times of a naive prostitute pimped by her brother-in-law while her sister develops her contacts with the low-level criminal fraternity.

It also finds a cleverly understated role for Stanley Yau, of Hong Kong boy band Mirror, whose character, Chang Ching-yao, seems to be in Taiwan for purposes other than simply attending graduate school.

It’s the savage murder of the prosti­tute that unleashes the bad karma still bubbling away thanks to the cold case – and you can find out who must answer for precisely what on Sundays at 9pm.