Equal parts crime drama and soap opera, French mini-series The Red Shadows concerns a police detective, Aurore (Nadia Farès), whose investigation into the murder of a low-level criminal turns up evidence that her long-missing younger sister, kidnapped at a tender age before Aurore's eyes, might be living in Italy. That possible sister, Clara (Manon Azem), is cohabitating with a scoundrel who hates cops, but Clara is intrigued by Aurore's presentation and consents to a DNA test.
The result throws Aurore's wealthy family-of-origin into a tizzy at the exact moment the patriarch has put their winery and resort up for sale, amounting to a huge payday for everyone. Clara has other ideas that throw a wrench into the proposed payday, and while all that sorts out, the mystery deepens over who really abducted Clara and why some people seem intent on killing her.
Weaving through this exciting stuff are Aurore's marital problems (her long obsession with finding Clara has just been so hard on poor hubby, who, by the way, is having an affair with Aurore's boss), and the unappealing aspects of two brothers (one a rich jerk and the other a hustling loser with big debts0, and psychodramas around her father's remarriage (Aurore' mother was murdered at the same time as the abduction). There's not a lot of style in The Red Shadows; the show is more efficient than visually interesting or concerned with pace and build-up. There are also quite a few male characters who look similar to one another and thus are hard to tell apart for the first couple of episodes. That isn't the best strategy for keeping viewers focused on a complex storyline. Lightly recommended.