The fictional character Dixon Hill was a 20th century detective who was the lead character in the Dixon Hill series of novels as well as their later film and holonovel adaptations.
Dixon Hill was a hero of Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the USS Enterprise-D, since he was a child. Fascinated by the two-fisted gumshoe, he programmed a holodeck simulation of the character. He was able to explore his fascination with Dixon Hill following the upgrade of the Enterprise-D holodecks in 2364. The adventures take place in San Francisco, California, 1941, where the user plays the character of private investigator Dixon Hill. (TNG: "The Big Goodbye")
Background
According to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, Dixon Hill was originally dubbed Dixon Steele by writer Tracy Torme. The producers, who were worried about problems with similarities the name bore to Remington Steele, insisted that it be changed, and eventually settled on the name Dixon Hill. Torme had patterned Hill/Steele after the Humphrey Bogart character in Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place.