LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― Irish star Colin Farrell and U.S. actor Vince Vaughn are to co-star in the second series of hit police drama “True Detective,” program makers announced Tuesday.

Farrell will play a detective under the thumb of a mobster and Vaughn a career criminal in the award-winning show, U.S. cable network Home Box Office said, giving the first official details of the new series.

The first series of “True Detective,” co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson on the hunt of a serial killer in Louisiana, was a critical and popular hit, winning five Primetime Emmy awards.

The new season will tell the story of “three police officers and a career criminal (who) must navigate a web of conspiracy in the aftermath of a murder,” HBO said in a statement.

Farrell will play Ray Velcoro, “a compromised detective whose allegiances are torn between his masters in a corrupt police department and the mobster who owns him.”

Vaughn meanwhile will play Frank Semyon, “a career criminal in danger of losing his empire when his move into legitimate enterprise is upended by the murder of a business partner.”

Filming on the eight hour-long episodes of the new series, expected to air next year, will begin in the next few months in California.

Farrell won a Golden Globe for 2008’s “In Bruges” and was more recently seen in 2012’s “Total Recall” and “Saving Mr Banks” last year.

Vaughn was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award for 2007’s “Into the Wild” and won a People’s Choice award for 2006’s “The Break-Up.”